said. There is no way of accounting for people. You have to take them as they are.
“There,” said Joan at last, pleased with her success; “another could have done it no better—not as well, I think. Tell me—what is it you did? Tell me all.”
The giant said:
“It was this way, my angel. My mother died, then my three little children, one after the other, all in two years. It was the famine; others fared so—it was God’s will. I saw them die; I had that grace; and I buried them. Then when my poor wife’s fate was come, I begged for leave to go to her—she who was so dear to me—she who was all I had; I begged on my knees. But they would not let me. Could I let her die, friendless and alone? Could I let her die believing I would not come? Would she let me die and she not come—with her feet free to do it if she would, and no cost upon it but only her life? Ah, she would come—she would come through the fire! So I went. I saw her. She died in my arms. I buried her. Then the army was gone. I had trouble to overtake it, but my legs are long and there are many hours in a day; I overtook it last night.”
Joan said, musingly, as if she were thinking aloud:
“It sounds true. If true, it were no great harm to suspend the law this one time—any would say that. It may not be true, but if it is true—” She turned suddenly to the man and said, “I would see your eyes—look up!” The eyes of the two met, and Joan said to the officer, “This man is pardoned. Give you good day; you may go.” Then she said to the man, “Did you know it was death to come back to the army?”
“Yes,” he said, “I knew it.”
“Then why did you do it?”
The man said, quite simply:
“Because it was death. She was all I had. There was nothing left to love.”
“Ah, yes, there was—France! The children of France have always their mother—they cannot be left with nothing to love. You shall live—and you shall serve France—”
“I will serve you!”—“you shall fight for France—”
“I will fight for you!”
“You shall be France’s soldier—”
“I will be your soldier!”—“you shall give all your heart to France—”
“I will give all my heart to you—and all my soul, if I have one—and all my strength, which is great—for I was dead and am alive again; I had nothing to live for, but now I have! You are France for me. You are my France, and I will have no other.”
Joan smiled, and was touched and pleased at the man’s grave enthusiasm—solemn enthusiasm, one may call it, for the manner of it was deeper than mere gravity—and she said:
“Well, it shall be as you will. What are you called?”
The man answered with unsmiling simplicity:
“They call me the Dwarf, but I think it is more in jest than otherwise.”
It made Joan laugh, and she said:
“It has something of that look truly! What is the office of that vast ax?”
The soldier replied with the same gravity—which must have been born to him, it sat upon him so naturally:
“It is to persuade persons to respect France.”
Joan laughed again, and said:
“Have you given many lessons?”
“Ah, indeed, yes—many.”
“The pupils behaved to suit you, afterward?”
“Yes; it made them quiet—quite pleasant and quiet.”
“I should think it would happen so. Would you like to be my man-at-arms?—orderly, sentinel, or something like that?”
“If I may!”
“Then you shall. You shall have proper armor, and shall go on teaching your art. Take one of those led horses there, and follow the staff when we move.”
That is how we came by the Dwarf; and a good fellow he was. Joan picked him out on sight, but it wasn’t a mistake; no one could be faithfuler than he was, and he was a devil and the son of a devil when he turned himself loose with his ax. He was so big that he made the Paladin look like an ordinary man. He liked to like people, therefore people liked him. He liked us boys from the start; and he liked the knights, and liked pretty much everybody he came across; but he thought more of a paring of Joan’s finger-nail than he did of all the rest of the world put together.
Yes, that is where we got him—stretched on the wain, going to his death, poor chap, and nobody to say a good word for him. He was a good find. Why, the knights treated him almost like an equal—it is the honest truth; that is the sort of a man he was. They called him the Bastille sometimes, and sometimes they called him Hellfire, which was on account of his warm and sumptuous style in battle, and you know they wouldn’t have given him pet names if they hadn’t had a good deal of affection for him.
To the Dwarf, Joan was France, the spirit of France made flesh—he never got away from that idea that he had started with; and God knows it was the true one. That was a humble eye to see so great a truth where some others failed. To me that seems quite remarkable. And yet, after all, it was, in a way, just what nations do. When they love a great and noble thing, they embody it—they want it so that they can see it with their eyes; like liberty, for instance. They are not content with the cloudy abstract idea, they make a beautiful statue of it, and then their beloved idea is substantial and they can look at it and worship it. And so it is as I say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied, our country made visible flesh cast in a gracious form. When she stood before others, they saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France.
Sometimes he would speak of her by that name. It shows you how the idea was embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him. The world has called our kings by it, but I know of none of them who has had so good a right as she to that sublime title.
When the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and rode at the head of the column. When we began to file past those grim bastilles and could glimpse the men within, standing to their guns and ready to empty death into our ranks, such a faintness came over me and such a sickness that all things seemed to turn dim and swim before my eyes; and the other boys looked droopy, too, I thought—including the Paladin, although I do not know this for certain, because he was ahead of me and I had to keep my eyes out toward the bastille side, because I could wince better when I saw what to wince at.
But Joan was at home—in Paradise, I might say. She sat up straight, and I could see that she was feeling different from me. The awfulest thing was the silence; there wasn’t a sound but the screaking of the saddles, the measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by the smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up. I wanted to sneeze myself, but it seemed to me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer even a bitterer torture, if there is one, than attract attention to myself.
I was not of a rank to make suggestions, or I would have suggested that if we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me that it was an ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were drifting in that suffocating stillness past a great cannon
