Then suddenly she felt horribly guilty in even entertaining such thoughts, and quickly drawing on the fresh pillow-slip she went away into her own room.

Marching forward? Yes, she had been marching since dawn and was yet only at the beginning of the way. And however far one went, one always came back to the same place. She went downstairs and sat by the fire beside Antiochus, who had not moved and was determined to wait there all day, if needs be, for the sake of seeing his superior and making his peace with him. He sat very still, one leg crossed over the other and his hands clasped round his knee, and presently he remarked, not without a slight accent of reproach:

‘You ought to have taken him his coffee into the church, as you do when he is delayed there hearing the women’s confessions. As it is, he will be famished!’

‘And how was I to know he would be sent for in such a hurry? The old man is dying, it seems,’ retorted the mother.

‘I don’t think that can be true. His grandchildren want him to die because he has some money to leave. I know the old chap! I saw him once when I went up into the mountains with my father: he was sitting amongst the rocks in the sun, with a dog and a tame eagle beside him and all sorts of dead animals all round. That is not how God orders us to live!’

‘What does He order, then?’

‘He orders us to live amongst men, to cultivate the ground, and not to hide our money, but to give it to the poor.’

The little sacristan spoke with a man’s confidence, and the priest’s mother was touched and smiled. After all, if Antiochus could say such sensible things it was because he had been taught by her Paul. It was her Paul who taught them all to be good, wise and prudent; and when he really wished to he succeeded in convincing even old men whose opinions were already fixed, and even thoughtless children. She sighed, and bending down to draw the coffee-pot nearer the glowing embers, she said:

‘You talk like a little saint, Antiochus; but it remains to be seen if you will do as you say when you’re a man, whether you really will give your money to the poor.’

‘Yes, I shall give everything to the poor. I shall have a great deal of money, because my mother makes a lot with her tavern, and my father is a forest keeper and earns pretty well, too. I shall give all I get to the poor: God tells us to do that, and He Himself will provide for us. And the Bible says, the ravens do not sow, neither do they reap, yet they have their food from God, and the lily of the valley is clothed more splendidly than the king.’

‘Yes, Antiochus, when a man is alone he can do that, but what if he has children?’