n the middle. He was a Rip Van Winkle of a
sheep-dog--the kind of dog you would picture in a fairy-tale. One
couldn't help feeling that he had accompanied the shepherd girl and
had kept the flock from straying while she spoke with her visions.
All those centuries ago he had seen her ride away--ride away to save
France--and she had not come back. All through the centuries he had
waited; at every footstep on the path he had come hopefully out from
his kennel, wagging his tail and barking ever more weakly. He would
not believe that she was dead. And it was difficult to believe it in
that ancient quiet. If ever France needed her, it was now.

Across my memory flashed the words of a dreamer, prophetic in the
light of recent events, "Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of
thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead.
Call her, King of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by the
apparitors to come and receive a robe of honour, but she will not be
found. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen,
shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up her
all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf
five centuries."

Quite illogically it seemed to me that January evening that this
American soldier was the symbol of the power that had come in her
stead.

The barking of the dog had awakened a bowed old Mother Hubbard lady.
She opened the door of her diminutive castle and peered across the
threshold, jingling her keys.

Would we come in? Ah, Monsieur from America was there! He was always
there when he was not training, playing with the children and rolling
cigarettes. And Monsieur, the English officer, perhaps he did not
know that she was descended from Joan's family. Oh, yes, there was no
mistake about it; that was why she had been made custodian. She must
light the lamp. There! That was better. There was not much to see, but
if we would follow....

We stepped down into a flagged room like a cellar--cold, ascetic
and bare. There was a big open fire-place, with a chimney hooded by
massive masonry and blackened by the fires of immemorial winters. This
was where Joan's parents had lived. She had probably been born here.
The picture that formed in my mind was not of Joan, but that other
woman unknown to history--her mother, who after Joan had left the
village and rumours of her battles and banquets drifted back, must
have sat there stari