„i -fj I 'E!Ri;l I of 
 
 mPESS 
 
 EVA- A' MADDEN 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924075791016 
 
SUNSHINE LIBRARY. 
 
 Aunt Hannah and Seth. By James Otis. 
 
 Blind Brother (The). By Homer Greene. 
 
 Captain's Dog (The). By Louis £nault. 
 
 Cat and the Candle (The). By Mary F. Leonard. 
 
 Christmas at Deacon Hacl<ett'8. By James Otis. 
 
 Christmas-Tree Scholar. By Frances Bent Dillingham. 
 
 Dear Little iVIarchioness. 
 
 Tiie Story of a Ciiild's Faith and Love. 
 Dick In the Desert. By James Otis. 
 Divided Skates. By Evelyn Raymond. 
 Gold Thread (The). By Norman MacLeod, D.D. 
 Half a Dozen Thinking Caps. By Mary Leonard. 
 How Tommy Saved the Barn. By James Otis. 
 Ingleside. By Barbara Yechton. 
 J. Cole. By Emma Gellibrand. 
 Jessica's First Prayer. By Hesba Stretton. 
 Laddie. By the author of *' Miss Toosey's Mission." 
 Little Crusaders. By Eva Madden. 
 Little Sunshine's Holiday. By Miss Mulock. 
 Little Peter. By Lucas Malet. 
 iVIaster Sunshine. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser. 
 Miss Toosey's Mission. By the author of " Laddie." 
 Musical Journey of Dorothy and Delia. 
 
 By Bradley Oilman. 
 Our Uncle, the Major. AStory of 1765. ByJamesOtis. 
 Pair of Them (A). By Evelyn Raymond. 
 Playground Toni. By Anna Chapin Ray. 
 Play Lady (The). By Ella Farman Pratt. 
 Prince Prigio. By Andrew Lang. 
 Short Cruise (A). By James Otis. 
 Smoky Days. By Edward W. Thomson. 
 Strawberry Hill. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser. 
 Sunbeams and Moonbeams. By Louise R. Baker. 
 Two and One. By Charlotte M. Vaile. 
 Wreck of the Circus (The). By James Otis. 
 Young Boss (The). By Edward W. Thomson. 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
<^omasJ/. Crowe// icCo. 
 c^Lib/isfiers. 
 
To 
 
 The Memory of a Utile child whose 
 
 tired feet have travelled to the 
 
 Jerusalem wherein rest the Little 
 
 Crusaders of the story and to whom 
 
 this book first was read. 
 
CONTENIS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Stephen of Cloyes 1 
 
 II. The Vision 17 
 
 III. Pieeee 31 
 
 IV; In the Chateau 44 
 
 V. The Old Man of the Mountain 58 
 
 VI. The Sieue Raoul 65 
 
 VII. At St. Denys 77 
 
 VIII. The Departure 87 
 
 IX. Marseilles 104 
 
 X. The Way 110 
 
 XI. The Sailing of the Ships 121 
 
 XII. What Happened to Alise 128 
 
 XIII. How Pierre Found Alise 139 
 
 XIV. Pierre's Father 148 
 
 XV. The Little Crusaders 155 
 
THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 STEPHEN OF CLOTES. 
 
 It was on a spring afternoon of long ago that 
 a group of little French peasant boys, busy in 
 mischief, were startled by the sudden dash of a 
 palfrey into their midst. 
 
 " Shame upon ye, children of Cloyes ! Have 
 ye no hearts that ye do this wicked deed? " 
 
 And down from the horse's back there sprang 
 a girl no older than the youngest of the group 
 before her. 
 
 She was clad in a gown of velvet, fashioned 
 to cling close about her figure, and all bravely 
 slashed with white, and embroidered in gold, 
 cut square across the breast, and of a blue 
 which gleamed green as doth the pea-fowl in 
 the sunlight. Like a flower amid thistles she 
 
2 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 confronted the rough peasants, a high-born 
 little accuser in a quaint cap which gave license 
 to her hair to escape in golden curls over her 
 neck and _ shoulders. Her eyes, even though 
 emboldened by her scorn, were shy as bluets 
 in spring-time, and her skin was soft and 
 very white save where excitement had flushed 
 it to the hue of the edges of the great white 
 peonies which grow in the gardens. 
 
 " Shame upon ye ! " she cried, and down 
 went the tousled heads of the seven little cul- 
 prits, while seven pairs of brown feet twisted 
 and wiggled in the soft earth beneath them. 
 
 "Without further words, the little maid gath- 
 ered the front of her gown in her hand, — for 
 'twas the fashion to make dresses sweep about 
 the feet, — and passing through the group made 
 her way towards a strange object immediately 
 before her, a great something which resembled 
 a box, but whose front was made terrible with 
 massive iron bars against whose cruel restraint 
 a poor human figure was angrily beating itself. 
 
 It was the village mad cage, and behind the 
 bars was old Andr6 gone mad with grief over 
 
STEPHEN OF CLOYES. 3 
 
 the loss of seven brave sons who had died of 
 a plague which once had devastated Cloyes. 
 Long ragged gray hair, torn and uncombed as 
 the mane of a beast from the forest, hung over 
 the shoulders of the sack-like garment into 
 which they had tied him, and when he turned 
 his gaze upon the child who approached, she 
 remembered the look in the eyes of a great 
 stag at bay which she had once seen when the 
 hunt was up and the hounds pressed hard 
 upon it. 
 
 " Andre, good Andre ! " She spoke in a 
 voice as soft as an afternoon breeze in June, 
 and fearlessly she approached close to the cage. 
 " Dost remember thy little mistress ? l^ay, she 
 remembereth thee." Her speech was gentle 
 with the sympathy of a loving heart, and the 
 poor maniac yielded enough to its charm to 
 pause in his frenzy while she named over his 
 sons, talking as if to one in his senses. The 
 children who, before her arrival, had been pok- 
 ing at Andre with sticks that they might goad 
 him to fury and then have their laugh at his 
 antics, slunk noiselessly away and scurried 
 
4 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 across the square to their homes in the little 
 thatched houses of the streets surrounding the 
 cage, and when their accuser turned from old 
 Andre not one was in sight. 
 
 With a satisfied nod of her pretty head she 
 took a gourd cut in the form of a dipper, from 
 its place near the cage and, filling it with 
 water, she brought it to Andr6, carefully pass- 
 ing it through the bars of the cage. He drank 
 deeply, and then soothed by unwonted kind- 
 ness he grew quiet and, presently, forgetful of 
 tormentors, he lifted his voice, and in full rich 
 tones he chanted the Benedictus. In his other 
 days he had sung in the church, and in his 
 quiet moments the old words and tunes would 
 return to his memory. 
 
 The child, her face all moved by his singing, 
 stood listening, one hand holding up her gown 
 above one little foot. 
 
 " 'Tis the Lady Alise from the castle, good 
 brother." And old Franjois, the wood-cutter, 
 piling logs before the house of the maire, looked 
 up and spoke to a stranger pilgrim who had 
 paused to watch the child at the cage. 
 
STEPHEN OF CLOYES. 5 
 
 " An angel they say she is, and well can I 
 believe it." And he nodded his old head until 
 a lock of gray hair fell into his eyes and he 
 had to push it back with a brawny, huge-fisted 
 hand. 
 
 The brother bowed in assent. He was a tall, 
 broad-shouldered man with a fine, noble face, 
 and a mouth which fitted firmly together when 
 shut. In his eyes was a look of tenderness, 
 and about his jaw and mouth were signs of 
 strength. His dress was gray, for he was a 
 follower of a certain rich young man, one 
 Francis of Assisi, who had left wealth and 
 home to espouse poverty and devote himself 
 to the care of God's poor, and who was then 
 gaining disciples over all Christendom. 
 
 Old Frangois, seeing that the little maid 
 was ready for her palfrey, and knew not how 
 to mount it alone, started forward to help 
 her. 
 
 But before he had taken a half dozen steps 
 there was another before him. 
 
 A boy, so beautiful that Alise and the gray 
 brother alike thought of the paintings of the 
 
6 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 angels in the churches, sprang from behind the 
 cage and led the palfrey to a spot convenient 
 for mounting. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the little lady, and her face 
 broke into smiles, " thou art the boy whom on 
 Black Crosses' day I saw in the church at 
 Chartres? But," and her smiles vanished in 
 quick concern, " tell me — thou wertnot one of 
 them ? " And she looked anxiously first at old 
 Andrfe, and then into the face before her. 
 
 " No, demoiselle," answered the boy, and he 
 shrugged his shoulders with a look of con- 
 tempt. " I have naught to do with such as 
 they." 
 
 Perhaps it was his look of scorn, or, per- 
 chance, only the ever-moving tenderness of her 
 heart which made Alise on the instant become 
 the defender of those whom she had but shortly 
 since reproved. 
 
 " It may be," she said, " they meant not to 
 do so wickedly. Now that they are hurt by 
 my words I grieve over their pain as I did over 
 the grief of poor Andre." 
 
 The boy looked at her in wonder, then he 
 
STEPHEN OF CLOYES. 7 
 
 shrugged his shoulders, not seeing how it were 
 possible to be so soft at the heart. 
 
 " Trouble not thyself for such as they," he 
 said in scornful unconcern. " Thy heart, lady, 
 is too tender. Fear thee not; they will return 
 to their evil sport as readily as they left it." 
 
 As he stood by the horse, his hand resting on 
 its mane, his golden hair glowed about his 
 head like the halo of a saint. He carried him- 
 self like a little prince, and yet Alise noticed 
 that he wore the dress of a shepherd. At his 
 belt was his wallet, and in one hand was a rough 
 little peasant cap. 
 
 " And what mayst be thy name, boy ? " And 
 Alise gave him a smile which invited confi- 
 dence. 
 
 " Stephen, my lady," answered the lad. 
 
 "And thy home?" 
 
 Following the direction of his hand, her eyes 
 rested upon the thatched roof of a small house 
 down the main street close to a meadow 
 through whose quiet greenness flowed the little 
 river Loir, stealing along between the trees 
 about the old castle, then winding like a cord 
 
8 THE LITTLE CRUSADEHS. 
 
 of light through shallow willows and grassy 
 banks. 
 
 " I watch sheep on yonder hills," and he 
 raised his hand towards the chalk cliffs beyond 
 the river. " To-day, my father hath detained 
 me at home, and Pierre watched both flocks. 
 Shortly must I join him and bring home my 
 sheep." 
 
 " And Pierre — is he thy brother ? " 
 
 Alise was very much interested. She was 
 ever in the society of grown people, and this 
 boy, this beautiful Stephen, she knew would 
 make a fine playfellow. Perhaps her mother, 
 — but no, in spite of his good looks and princely 
 bearing, he was but a peasant, no better than 
 old Andr§, the maniac who once had been cow- 
 herd at the castle. 
 
 " But no," answered Stephen, shaking his 
 golden halo, " Pierre hath no father. He lives 
 with Jacques, the head shepherd. He found 
 him when he was a babe in the forest beyond 
 Cloyes." 
 
 Alise was all attention. Here, Indeed, was a 
 story, and she loved stories above everything, 
 
STEPHEN OP CLOYES. 9 
 
 the more so when they told of real happen- 
 ings. 
 
 " Tell me more," she commanded, when to 
 her disappointment a servitor from the chateau 
 approached and bowed low before her. 
 
 " Thy gracious mother would that thou come 
 at once," and he lifted her to her horse. 
 
 Waving her hand in farewell to Stephen, she 
 vanished from the square. 
 
 The boy stood silent for a moment, and then 
 without so much as a glance or thought for poor 
 Andre, or overworked Frangois, he bounded 
 down the street and disappeared up the road 
 leading beyond the hills. 
 
 The Franciscan, who had paused to rest upon 
 the logs, turned thoughtfully towards the 
 wood-cutter. 
 
 " 'Tis strange," he said, " the child in velvet 
 and fine linen hath pity upon God's poor, but 
 the boy in the homespun hath thought but for 
 himself." 
 
 " Stephen ? Thou meanest Stephen ? " and 
 Frangois raised up from his last log. "Yet 
 he is a pious child. He prayeth by the hour." 
 
10 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " May be," answered the Franciscan, rising 
 to depart, " but God asketh of us more than 
 prayers. 'Tis the heart which He needeth." 
 
 Then he went his way with a memory of a 
 gentle child and a poor tortured maniac. Later 
 on was he to see the girl in the homespun, the boy 
 in the velvet, but he knew naught of that on 
 that pleasant spring day as he journeyed from 
 Cloyes saying over his Paternosters or Ave 
 Marias. 
 
 It was a jocund day. The sun was warming 
 into life the laburnums and the hawthorns, the 
 syringas and the olives. The sap was quick in 
 the vines on the hills, and the tender shoots 
 were swelling at the joints of the dull brown 
 stems. Already in the grass were violets and 
 early primroses. 
 
 A few more weeks, a little warmer sun, and 
 the world would be transformed by the ever 
 new miracle of the spring awakening. Brother 
 Sylvestre felt the gladness, and forgot his Pa- 
 ternosters in his keen enjoyment of all about 
 him. 
 
 A cinnamon-colored body vibrated through 
 
STEPHEN OF CLOYES. 11 
 
 the air. " 'Tis the thrush," said Brother Syl- 
 vestre. 
 
 A note thrilled from over the field by the road. 
 
 " 'Tis the lark," said Brother Sylvestre, and 
 thought of the old days when he and his brother 
 had hunted for the nests in the fields and woods. 
 He threw back his tonsured head and drank in 
 the keen fresh air. 
 
 At a turn in the road he saw a flock of sheep 
 descending the hill before him. Behind them 
 came two little shepherds, waving aloft their 
 crooks. Two dogs with eyes keen as those of 
 man himself and yet soft with solicitude for the 
 silly sheep, were circling about the flocks in 
 wide intelligent sweeps, pausing here, pausing 
 there, to keep in the path some wilful wan- 
 derer. 
 
 The Franciscan, remembering the Shepherd 
 of men, bowed his head and said a prayer. 
 Passing the flocks,he came face to face with their 
 shepherds. In one he recognized the Stephen 
 of the afternoon. The other was a handsome, 
 sturdy little fellow, with fine, frank, blue eyes 
 and a noble-looking head, well covered with 
 
12 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 dark curls, and finely set upon neck and shoul- 
 ders. When the Franciscan saw this face, his 
 own grew troubled as if at some quick touch 
 upon a sensitive memory. 
 
 " Thy names ? " he inquired, for the boys had 
 paused to do him reverence, the dogs mean- 
 while guiding the sheep. 
 
 " Stephen of Cloyes," answered the one of 
 the golden hair. " Pierre, the son of Jacques," 
 replied the other. 
 
 The Franciscan looked this one clean 
 through. 
 
 " Thou mayest be Pierre, the son of Jacques," 
 he said, " but, by St. Martin of Tours, thou hast 
 about thee the look of mine own one brother. 
 And T like thee for it," he added. 
 
 Then he let them pass on. 
 
 When the sheep were in their cotes for the 
 night, the boys returned to the bridge to enjoy 
 the evening. 
 
 Leaning on the old guard wall, they watched 
 the water flow from behind the trees about the 
 distant castle, them ripple its way between the 
 banks of tender spring grass, touching the un- 
 
STEPHEN OP CLOYES. 13 
 
 curling leaves of the water plants, an washing 
 the long legs of a heron beyond the bridge. 
 The evening sun began its work of flushing the 
 waters rosy pink, and ever and anon a silver 
 fish would flash upward, sometimes even leav- 
 ing the waters to descend thither again with a 
 bubbling splash in its rosiness. 
 
 The air was faintly sweet with the perfume 
 of the earliest of the fruit-tree blossoms, and 
 in the lush grass of the meadow little leverets 
 were leaping about in fearless sport. 
 
 The birds were singing vespers, and Stephen, 
 who loved beauty, and Pierre, who loved nature, 
 were having their fill. 
 
 Beyond them lay Cloyes, and smoke was 
 curling blue from some of the houses. On the 
 air were the evening sounds of cattle with milk- 
 laden udders, longing to be generous with their 
 gift, of fowls settling for the night, of wives 
 calling their husbands, and little children at 
 their play. 
 
 " Truly a right good deed was it to rescue 
 old Andre," cried Pierre, when Stephen told 
 him of his afternoon's adventure. 
 
14 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " Thou, Pierre, shouldst have seen her," an- 
 swered Stephen, and described the velvet and 
 curls. 
 
 These two little shepherds had been friends 
 always. " Because they are so different," said 
 Jacques. 
 
 Certainly they were as unlike in character as 
 in the color of their locks. Stephen was a 
 dreamer, and old for his years ; Pierre was a 
 worker, and he loved play like a child. 
 
 Stephen was wont to steal away to the church 
 and dream of angels and plan glorious deeds 
 for God's kingdom. Pierre loved to wander 
 over the hills, to lie in the long grass when the 
 summer sun was upon it, or to track the rabbit 
 to its burrow, the bird to its nest. 
 
 Stephen knew the name and deed of every 
 saint, but Pierre knew the birds, and when he 
 went deep in the forest, sometimes the dun 
 deer, gathered in herds in their secret places, 
 would let him walk freely among them. 
 
 Stephen had a voice as sweet as the skylark 
 of far-away England, and when, in the church, 
 he would tune his notes to the words of the 
 
STEPHEN OP CLOYES. 15 
 
 Credo or the Gloria, the old people of Cloyes 
 would close their eyes and remember the angels 
 who sang above Bethlehem. But Pierre could 
 whistle a merry tune, and he knew the notes 
 of the birds of the wood, and of the birds of 
 the fields, and he had a trick of winning the 
 loves of the young things about pasture or 
 forest. 
 
 Stephen longed for glorious deeds, but Pierre 
 wanted a falcon, — a haggard of the rock,— that 
 he might mew and man it, and carry it on his 
 wrist, and try it on the banks of the river 
 where ofttiraes came the heron. 
 
 " If I could but find my father," he said that 
 evening to Stephen, " then I, too, could dress in 
 velvet and have a falcon on my wrist and seek 
 the quarry as doth thy little lady of the castle." 
 And he gazed at the heron with the eye of a 
 would-be sportsman. 
 
 But Stephen smiled loftily. " I desire not 
 such things, Pierre," he said. " I long to be a 
 crusader, and win the tomb -of our Lord." 
 
 'Tis not often that boys' wishes come true, 
 but Stephen of Cloyes had not long to wait for 
 
16 THE LITTLE CRUSADEHS. 
 
 his. The fulfilment of it came to pass in so 
 strange a fashion that even in the history of 
 those far-oflf days there is nothing stranger, 
 nor in any other history is there anything like 
 it. 
 
OHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE VISION OF STEPHEN. 
 
 It happened one evening, shortly after the 
 afternoon when the Lady Alise talked with 
 Stephen, that old Mengette, wife of Frangois 
 the woodcutter, leading homeward her goat 
 for its bedtime milking, was startled by a 
 sound of hurrying feet. Looking up, she caught 
 sight of Shepherd Stephen dashing towards 
 the village followed by a line of white dust 
 raised by his hurrying feet. In his hand was 
 a roll of parchment, a most uncommon pos- 
 session for a peasant. 
 
 Mengette called his name, but unheeding, or 
 perhaps not hearing, the boy fled on so fast 
 that Mengette turned hastily to see if aught 
 pursued him. 
 
 All she saw was the dust at his heels. A 
 
 little later, feeling that something was astir in 
 2 17 
 
18 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 the village, she sought a spot from which 
 she could command a distant vie^r of the square. 
 Standing there Avith arms akimbo, her fat old 
 face keen with curiosity, she presently realized 
 that everybody in Cloyes was hastening to- 
 wards the heap of logs her husband had piled 
 in front of the house of the raaire. 
 
 She hurried back to her goat. "Ah, my 
 pretty one,'' she said, as if talking to a child, 
 " thou must . abide alone until thy mistress 
 seeth what 'tis all about." And she ungirded 
 her red woolen skirt from about her ample 
 waist where, for convenience' sake, she had 
 tucked it when working. Up the street she 
 went with much the gait of one of her own fat 
 ducks. 
 
 " The Holy Saints ! " she cried when her 
 small black eyes caught sight of the square. 
 It was filled to overflowing. Click clack, click 
 clack went the feet on the stones, while flashing 
 to and fro were red jackets, and gay woolen 
 skirts. 
 
 She saw Henri the blacksmith, Durand, 
 Jacques the shepherd, Antoine, her own 
 
THE VISION OF STEPHEN. 19 
 
 Francois, the maire himself; everybody was 
 there. Suddenly she felt a jostle at her elbow 
 and heard a voice at her ear. 
 
 " Why, in the name of all the saints, are 
 these men not about their work ? Lazy, good 
 for nothing things that they are." 
 
 It was Henriette, the village scold, who in 
 russet gown, red woolen jacket, and white coif 
 was expressing opinions iu a high rasping voice 
 as she elbowed right and left in an effort to 
 push towards the front. 
 
 " For the love of Our Lady^ " 
 
 It was blind Matilde groping with out- 
 stretched hands, her ears eager to know what 
 was happening. 
 
 " As for me, what can. ye expect ? A 
 woman with twelve children never hath chance 
 to hear anything." 
 
 And Ernestine, wife of Durand, the black- 
 haired man close to the maire, babies clinging 
 to lier skirts, steered herself bravely through 
 the crowd. 
 
 Andre, too, was doing his part to add to the 
 hubbub; First, he would rush about his cage. 
 
20 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 piercing the air with piteous yells, then he 
 would raise his full voice in song or hymn. 
 
 In and out the crowd ran the dogs of Cloyes, 
 a sharp bark now and then telling of their 
 presence. And children ! They were there in. 
 dozens and of all ages. 
 
 Above the noise, Mengette heard the voice of 
 her husband. 
 
 " I tell ye, people of Cloyes, I tell ye the whole 
 thing is nonsense. 'Twas some priest " 
 
 " 'So ! no ! " cried a dozen voices. " Let the 
 boy speak. "We would hear Stephen." 
 
 And then Mengette marveled at the sudden 
 hush which fell on the crowd when a boy's 
 voice, sweet and clear, rang out on the evening 
 air. 
 
 It was Stephen and he stood in dark out- 
 line against the rosiness of the evening sky, 
 high on the pile of logs before the house of the 
 maire. Seated on these same logs was old 
 Jacques' Pierre, and his little legs were dangling 
 down over the tree trunks, and on his face was 
 a look which told the story of his having heard 
 things which had puzzled and startled him. 
 
THE VISION OF STEPHEN. 21 
 
 "No," cried Stephen, and his golden hair 
 seemed to glow about his lovely face, " no, 
 good Franjois, I speak the truth," and he 
 threw out his hands as if imploring the crowd 
 to believe him. " I speak no nonsense, but the 
 truth. He who this day came to me on yonder 
 hills wore the dress of a shepherd, and his face 
 was true, and had ye seen him, ye, too, would 
 believe." 
 
 Stephen shook back the halo about his head, 
 and in his eyes there came a look as of one 
 who sees far away and beyond what is just 
 before him. 
 
 " He came to me as I sat on the grass, and I 
 tell ye true when I say that I saw not when 
 he came, nor when he went. He was there, 
 and he was not there, and that is the truth of it. 
 He besought me for food, and sat with me, and 
 ate what my mother had placed in my wallet. 
 And he told me of the Holy Land, and of the 
 death of our Lord, and of His tomb, and of the 
 dishonor which the Infidels do it, and of the 
 sufferings of the pilgrims. All this, and much 
 more fell from his lips, but most of the tortures 
 
22 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 which the Infidels lay on the pilgrims who 
 seek to honor our Lord at Hia tomb. Then, 
 when mine eyes were misty with tears at the 
 thought of their pain, on a sudden, he rose, and 
 yes, Francois, yes, he told me that he was our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, come down in a 
 vision to command me, Stephen the shepherd, 
 to raise an army of children and lead forth a 
 new crusade to rescue Jerusalem and restore 
 the tomb to Christendom ! " 
 
 The boy's voice rang out with an accent of 
 truth. He believed his vision. Mengette saw 
 that. But our Lord Jesus Christ ! It was a 
 strange day, and people believed many marvels 
 but— 
 
 " Bah ! " cried Frangois, " 'twas only a crafty 
 priest ! " . 
 
 Certainly, the story exceeded anything the 
 people of Cloyes had been asked to believe in 
 even their most believing moments. 
 
 A crusade of children ! 
 
 Now Mengette, and Henriette, and Jacques, 
 and all the rest of them, knew about the cru- 
 sades. 
 
THE VISION OF STEPHEN. 23 
 
 The Middle Ages were full of them. Five 
 had gone forth, and the Pope had ordered a 
 sixth. But, certainly, these had naught to do 
 with children. Many a warrior, wearing his 
 cross, had Mengette seen go forth to battle 
 against the Saracens. Her grandfather had 
 told her of Peter the Hermit, the pious monk 
 who first had persuaded Europe to rise and 
 make war upon the Infidels who then possessed 
 Jerusalem. She knew that these crusades had 
 been led by kings and emperors, — Richard of 
 England had passed by Cloyes itself — and he 
 was the lion of crusaders. 
 
 She knew that Godfrey of Bouillon had 
 entered Jerusalem in triumph, and, that after 
 his victories, the Christians had held the land 
 for nearly a century, but she knew, too, of the 
 fearful bloodshed, and the cruel quarrels, and 
 the tortured pilgrims, and, therefore, she knew 
 that crusades were no work for children. 
 
 " We will march through France." Again 
 she lent ear to Stephen. " And the sea shall 
 dry before our path, and in triumph the chil- 
 dren shall enter Jerusalem." 
 
24 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " ' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,' " 
 repeated the boy, " ' hast thou ordained strength, 
 because of thine enemies, that thou mightest 
 still the enemy and the avenger.' " 
 
 This was the text which Stephen's strange 
 visitor had taught him. " Innocence," he 
 cried, " shall conquer where strong men have 
 failed. Our Lord hath promised ! " 
 
 " Out upon thee for such talk," came the rude 
 voice of Frangois, now thoroughly aroused to 
 anger. " Shall babies bring the sword ? Thy 
 pilgrim, my little Stephen, was but some crafty 
 priest who knew full well of thy piety, and 
 means to use thee to his end. Our Lord," and 
 he raised his old eyes with meek reverence to- 
 wards the evening sky, " dwelleth above, and 
 we shall see Him only at the last day." 
 
 But Stephen insisted. 
 
 " It was our Lord," he said, and he threw 
 back his head and looked Frangois bravely in 
 the face, never heeding the people who were 
 arguing and protesting, some shocked, some 
 ready to believe, others puzzled, some clamor- 
 ous, a few already under the spell. 
 
THE VISION OP STEPHEN. 25 
 
 " For, when he had made an end of speaking, 
 in a moment, when I turned to look after my 
 sheep, he vanished. Then, behold. He gave 
 me this ! " 
 
 He held out a roll of parchment. " 'Tis a 
 letter to the king," he said. " And in it, our 
 Lord commandeth him, in the name of God 
 and our Lady, to succor and not hinder the 
 crusade of the children." 
 
 Not one in the crowd could read or write. 
 With awe and reverence they gazed upon the 
 sacred parchment. In their ignorance they 
 were ready to believe anything, especially when 
 it had to do with religion. 
 
 " To-morrow," said the maire, and he lifted 
 a fat hand of authority, " we will take the boy 
 and his letter to messire the cure, and he shall 
 settle the matter of the vision." 
 
 So the next day they took Stephen to the 
 cure. He was a saintly old man with mild blue 
 eyes and a face which spoke of much fasting 
 and praying. 
 
 His sermons were always about visions and 
 signs ; and, so when Stephen told his story, the 
 
26 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 old man clasped his hands with the finger-tips 
 pressed hard upon the knuckles, until the violet 
 veins stood high up from the wrinkled skin. 
 
 " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart 
 in peace," he said devoutly, and bent his ton- 
 sured head in thanksgiving that a vision had 
 come to honor poor Cloyes. 
 
 " Did not our Lord appear to the saints ? " 
 he asked, gazing about on the group of people 
 who knew not how to answer him if they 
 would, he being a priest, and they ignorant 
 peasants. Then he raised the wrinkled old 
 hands which had baptized all the children of 
 Cloyes, and gave Stephen his blessing, and bade 
 him Godspeed with the crusade of the chil- 
 dren. 
 
 From that day naught else was discussed in 
 Cloyes. 
 
 " Tell us of the crusades," the children would 
 entreat. " Stephen doth say that all who wear 
 the cross and follow him to Jerusalem, shall 
 have their sins forgiven them on earth and 
 win shining crowns in Heaven." 
 
 Old Gaston, who once had been a lusty black- 
 
THE VISION OF STEPHEN. 27 
 
 smith at Tours, had the most to tell. He was 
 well-nigh a hundred, and had heard the great 
 Bernard preach the second crusade at Vezelai. 
 In his quavering voice he told the little group 
 of children what it meant to become a crusader. 
 He described the preaching of Peter the Her- 
 mit as it had been told him as a child, and he 
 pictured for them Godfrey entering Jerusalem 
 in triumph, but refusing to wear a crown of 
 gold in that city where his master had worn 
 the one of thorns. 
 
 But, above all, he told how Queen Eleanora 
 of Aquitaine, the mother of Eichard the Lion- 
 Hearted of England, but then the wife of the 
 king of France, had rushed forward at the 
 preaching of the great Bernard and had begged 
 for the cross that she, though a queen and a 
 woman, might become a crusader, and share 
 the hardships of the king and his army on 
 their journey to Palestine. 
 
 It was this tale which stirred up the girls. 
 
 " And may- we not go, too, on the crusade ? " 
 they asked, and flocked about Stephen. Only 
 Frangois, the wood-cutter, kept his head. 
 
28 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 He was a queer-looking man whose thick 
 gray hair was swept baclt from a face tanned 
 and browned by a life in the air ; and his nose 
 was curved like the beak of an eagle, and his 
 eyes seemed to look things clean through to the 
 truth. 
 
 " I tell ye, people of Cloyes," he would say, 
 " ye had better lock up your children, or, by 
 St. Martin of Tours, ye will live to repent ye of 
 your folly. Take sticks to them if need be," 
 he would add, thumping hard one fist upon the 
 other and furrowing deep bis brow. 
 
 He was a man of imagination, — a man who 
 though a cutter of trees never had brought 
 himself to the state of not quivering in sym- 
 pathy when he heard the shrieking cry of the 
 falling tree — and he could picture to himself 
 the woes of a children's crusade. 
 
 But no one heeded him. 
 
 " Out upon thee for an old croaker ! Bah ! " 
 they said. " Have we not the letter to prove 
 the vision ? " 
 
 So on went the madness. 
 
 Presently, processions began to be formed. 
 
THE VISION OP STEPHEN. 29 
 
 Children went up and down the lanes waving 
 banners and singing the stirring songs of the 
 old crusaders, and they were so much occupied 
 with themselves and their crusading that they 
 trampled down the flowers which each spring 
 they had loved to gather, and they sang so 
 loud that the birds took offense and flew off to 
 quiet spots without rivals. 
 
 In the midst of it all, Stephen, at the com- 
 mand of the cure, bade farewell to Cloyes and 
 started to find the king that he might show 
 him the letter. It was early morning when he 
 left Cloyes, and the air was sweet with the 
 perfume of the fruit blooms. The meadows 
 were dotted with flowers, and bees and birds 
 were a-buzz and a-twitter. Hope was high 
 with nature, and Stephen's ardent heart was 
 beating high with the belief in his vision. He 
 passed along with so far-off a look in his eyes 
 that he saw nothing of the life about him, the 
 birds at work with straws and moss, the bees 
 astir in the flowers, nor did he pause when he 
 heard a sharp cry of pain from the bushes 
 about the castle. 
 
30 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 "Only some bird which hath escaped the 
 fowler or the peregrine," he thought with easy 
 unconcern. 
 
 Again came the sound, and then there was 
 a breaking through of bushes, and when Ste- 
 phen looked back he saw the little Lady Alise, 
 clad all in white, stoop and raise a dove to her 
 breast. Her gentle hands soothed it, and her 
 lips cooed to it, while red drops from its wounded 
 breast fell unheeded on the whiteness of her 
 gown. 
 
 It was a pretty sight, but Stephen had his 
 mind upon crusading and went on his way, 
 leaving Alise to her bird, for to pause meant to 
 lose time in finding the king. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 PIEEEE. 
 
 PiEEEE lived with old Jacques and Marie, his 
 wife, in a small thatched cottage on the edge 
 of a meadow, which sloped towards the Loir. 
 From its doorway could be seen the gentle 
 little river, the vine-clad hills beyond, and the 
 castle and its trees. It was a pleasant spot 
 and Pierre was very happy. He had his dog 
 and a tame crow, and Jacques and Marie loved 
 him as their own child. 
 
 In the summer Pierre was wont to. roam 
 the meadows, helping Marie gather simples; 
 in the winter, nothing pleased him more than 
 to sit on a stool and hearken while his foster 
 father told tales of life when he was a boy. 
 When the time for the blue flowers of the flax 
 was past, he would help Marie gather the 
 plants and bear them into the house, and much 
 
 he loved to hear the buzz and whir of the 
 
 31 
 
32 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 wheel when, a little later, the busy housewife 
 would begin the spinning of the fibers into the 
 linen to store away for tunics or gowns. In 
 its season he would bring in the lavender to 
 lay in the linen, and fresh sprigs of mint from 
 the brook near the house. 
 
 In front of the cottage was a stone bench 
 and around about it was a garden riotous with 
 flowers. There blossomed the ground pepper 
 with its fragrant smell, and early spring prim- 
 roses, and violets, and a thorny bush on whose 
 spiky limbs the throstle would pour forth its 
 joy, and the old-time citronelle, and sage, and 
 the flaunting poppies, and lilies sweet as the 
 white cheeks of a babe. 
 
 On warm evenings Marie and Jacques would 
 sit on the bench, and the old woman would lay 
 her toil-worn hand in his great broad palm, and, 
 with her old head on his shoulder, the two 
 would listen to the nightingale wooing the 
 night, and remember the days when as lovers 
 they sat on this same hard bench. 
 
 Pierre loved this bench, too, and on summer 
 days before he grew old enough to keep the 
 
PIEERE. 33 
 
 sheep on the hills, he would lie at full length on 
 the warm stones and watch the white clouds 
 telling wonderful stories as they passed over 
 the blue of the sky. 
 
 When shearing time came, he was Jacques' 
 cheerful little helper, and gathering his arms 
 full of the soft masses of wool would heap them 
 in a pile ready to be borne to the store place. 
 
 The greater part of his time, however, was 
 spent on the hill with Stephen. 
 
 In the evenings, when the sheep were safe 
 for the night, he and M6re Marie and Pere 
 Jacques would sit together in the living-room 
 of their small house. Marie would turn her 
 wheel, and the old man would teach Pierre the 
 Our Father and the I Believe, which every 
 child was required to know before he might 
 partake of the communion. 
 
 The room -was poor, and its floor was of 
 hard white earth, without carpet or covering, 
 and in its center in winter burned a fire whose 
 smoke ascended through a hole in the roof. 
 But it was home, and Pierre loved the rough 
 little wooden statue of the "Virgin in its corner 
 3 
 
34: THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 and muoh it pleased his ears to hear the cheer- 
 ful hum of the wheel as Marie busied himself 
 with her spinning. From the black rafters 
 hung bundles of simples and herbs which 
 smelled sweet in the drying. 
 
 There was no better story-teller in Cloyes 
 than old Jacqiies, and at Pierre's pleading he 
 would gladly relax his zeal and become story- 
 teller in place of teacher. He was a hale old 
 man with mild eyes of gentle blue and 
 straight white hair thrown back from his fore- 
 head, a face deep furrowed, and strong in the 
 line of the nose, and with a mouth which 
 smiled kindly at children. 
 
 Sitting at his feet, his small hands caressing 
 the old man's knee, Pierre heard many a tale 
 of knight and crusader. And he heard, too, of 
 his being found in the forest when only a babe. 
 
 " In those days," the old man would begin, 
 " the forests were much infested by thieves and 
 robbers, and perilous, indeed, it was to travel 
 alone, unless, little one, a man were poor, for 
 poverty, Pierre, is the one thing which exciteth 
 no envy. It happened in the year that I found 
 
PIERRE. 35 
 
 thee, that God took our own little babe, a boy- 
 like to thee." 
 
 " And named Pierre too," put in the small 
 listener, hitching his stool closer to his father, 
 and turning up a bright little face. 
 
 " Yes, we gave thee his name, not knowing 
 thine own, and having no assurance that thou 
 hadst been baptized. He was a goodly child, 
 fair and plump, and one not likely to fall into 
 ailments. But, nevertheless, he did fall ill, — 
 upon St. Mark's Day. I remember full well 
 that it was St. Mark's, and not St. Gregory's, 
 as Marie will have it, because I saw Messire 
 the good cur6 on his road to Ch§,rtres for the 
 Black Cross Day mass. Marie didst doctor the 
 babe with many herbs, but 'twas in vain. By 
 nightfall all was over. 'Twas a sad year — a 
 sad year. Messire the good cur6 came near to 
 death, and Marie's father " 
 
 "But, Pere Jacques," interrupted Pierre, 
 " am I not to hear of how thou didst find me 
 in the woods ? " 
 
 " Thou art right," and Mere Marie would 
 smile from her wheel. " When thy father would 
 
36 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 tell a thing he loseth himself in a wilderness of 
 words as doth a bird in the net of a fowler." 
 
 But Jacques would laugh and proceed in the 
 telling of his story, for he and Mere Marie un- 
 derstood each other, and Pierre knew naught 
 of bickering. 
 
 " I was passing through the woods, mon 
 enfant, and had come to a lonely spot, a deep 
 quiet place where the moss was thick and 
 green, and soft to the hand, and the leaves 
 above the path were thick like a roof, and 
 through it ran a brook, and its babble over 
 the fallen leaves of its bed seemed to make the 
 stillness but deeper. Wild things, knowing 
 naught of man and his cruel sports, walked 
 fearlessly about, or bathed in the clear water of 
 the spring from whence started the brook. As 
 I journeyed along, on mine ears there fell a 
 sound of screams, and callings for help, and 
 prayers for mercy. Then came a clash of 
 swords, the cry of a babe, groans, and the break- 
 ing through of bushes. As I, seizing fast my 
 cudgel, sprang through the trees, two varlets, 
 gaily dressed and streaming with blood, dashed 
 
PIEEEE. 37 
 
 through the brush and ran as if pursued by the 
 Black Plague itself. Unmindful of me, away 
 they dashed. I hastened towards the sound of 
 commotion, and there beheld I three great ruf- 
 fians, like hungry vultures over a lamb, hang- 
 ing above a fair lady and her babe. In their 
 hands were swords and their garments reeked 
 with blood. I sprang forward dealing fearful 
 blows and calling, ' Nicholas ! Jean ! Andre ! ' 
 in the pretense that I was but one of many. 
 Taking fright the robbers made off, but not be- 
 fore they had dealt the lady the blow of death, 
 and robbed her of many of her jewels and all of 
 her gold. I lifted her from the ground and bore 
 her to the spring. I bathed her poor face and 
 staunched her wounds, but 'twas all in vain. 
 Each moment brought her nearer to her 
 end. 
 
 " I placed thee in her arms. A smile, like that 
 of Our Lady in the picture at Chartres, lighted 
 up her face. 
 
 " ' Bear — thou — the babe — to his father,' she 
 said, and her breath came in gasps, and her 
 voice in a faint whisper. 
 
38 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " Before I could learn aught of thy father, 
 little one, her sweet voice died into silence, and 
 I lifted thee, little orphan, from the arms of 
 thy mother, a gentle dove slain by the cruel 
 hawks. Then brought I thee to good Haviette 
 Eom§e on the edge of the village, Marie being 
 gone on a journey to Tours. "We buried thy 
 sweet dead mother, but of thy father we 
 found not a trace." 
 
 " Nor will we," put in Marie stopping her 
 wheel and rubbing her cheek with one 
 hand. 
 
 " Well dost thou know, little Pierre, that the 
 good cure hath done his best to find thy father, 
 but in vain. How can we find a man of whom 
 we know not so much as his name ? " 
 
 " The jewels and the clothes," put in P^re 
 Jacques. 
 
 " Nay, nay, my good man, put not false 
 hopes into the heart of our boy. He dreameth 
 over much now. He hath the habit of Ste- 
 phen. But no, my little Pierre," and she rose 
 from the wheel and, walking towards the 
 child, put her hand on his cheek and drew the 
 
PIERRE. 39 
 
 little head against her knee, — the small cheek 
 pressed itself close against her hand, for Marie 
 was the same as his mother, — " make thyself 
 happy with things which are, — that is true 
 wisdom ; leave the rest to the good God, — that 
 is thy duty." 
 
 But presently Pierre would begin again. 
 
 " P6re Jacques, tell how thou broughtest 
 me to the hamlet." 
 
 " I bore thee in my arms, and ' Marie,' I said, 
 ' God hath sent thee this babe. He hath taken 
 away, and now He giveth.' At first her heart, 
 aching for its own little one, cried out against 
 another in its place, but thy smile banished 
 her grief, and her heart growing warm towards 
 thee, she said, ' If the clothes of mine own 
 child fit the stranger, then, indeed, shall I know 
 it to be the gift of God, and I will keep it for 
 mine own.' And the clothes fitted thee as if 
 they had been measured upon thee, and Marie, 
 seeing thee to be a gift of the good God, 
 brought thee up as her own. And thou art a 
 good boy, and may we never regret it." 
 
 Then would old Jacques stroke the boy's 
 
40 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 hair, and Marie kiss him, and both smile at 
 eath other as if to say, 
 
 " He is ours ; and proud, indeed, are we to 
 own him." 
 
 " But, good wife," Jacques presently would 
 say, " the boy's father is, doubtless, a grand 
 seigneur, and Pierre may become a mighty lord 
 and leave us." 
 
 " Never," Pierre would cry, jumping up, and 
 throwing back his shoulders, and putting on an 
 air so exactly like a grown man that Marie, to 
 hide her smile, was forced to look close at a 
 spot on her kirtle. " By the good blood in my 
 veins," — Pierre had once heard the oath of 
 a knight, and it pleased him to speak in this 
 fashion, since it sounded brave and well-born, — 
 "never will I become a dastard. Te are 
 father and mother to me forever." 
 
 ^Nevertheless, in spite of this brave talk, 
 Pierre thought much of this father whom he 
 never had seen, and he became to the boy a 
 knight so brave and so splendid that there was 
 none in France like to him, save only the King 
 himself. 
 
PIERRE. 41 
 
 Once he persuaded Mere Marie to show him 
 the Jewels and clothes, and she, to please the 
 lad and because, moreover, it was his own, per- 
 mitted him to wear about his neck a chain they 
 had taken from that of his mother. 
 
 He would lie at night in his little bed of 
 straw and dream of all the things he would do 
 when he found his father; how stout Marie 
 was to have tunics of the finest cloth all over 
 with gold, stars and crescents, rich girdles with 
 buckles of precious stones, mantles embroidered, 
 while good old P^re Jacques was to go forth in 
 tunics of cloth of gold and full-sleeved dalma- 
 tics like a king, and over all was the glitter of 
 gold and silver and shining gems. 
 
 When Stephen talked of the crusade Pierre's 
 heart responded in wild excitement. 
 
 Then he remembered Mere Marie and Pdre 
 Jacques and shook his head. 
 
 But Stephen talked a vast deal about the for- 
 saking of father and mother for the sake of 
 Christ, and he told him of how, perchance, he 
 might discover his real father, and he dropped 
 a hint here, and a promise there, until Pierre 
 
42 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 began to tell himself that it was his duty to 
 God to become a crusader and follow Stephen. 
 One thing, however, troubled him. It was 
 that he felt so shamefaced about going. If it 
 were the wiU of God, he wondered why he 
 felt so uncomfortable in the doing of it. 
 
 He wanted to go. 
 
 What boy of Cloyes did not when the banners 
 were flying and the songs calling to the march ? 
 It was like being a knight and a man, and 
 serving God in grown-up fashion. 
 
 "When first he prattled of it, Marie silenced 
 him. 
 
 " A crusade, little one," she said, " is against 
 Satan and sin, and beware lest thou follow him 
 for thy leader." 
 
 Dull, indeed, was such talk in the face of 
 Stephen with his visions and his banners and 
 his promises of glory, and, therefore, when the 
 children at length left Cloyes to, join Stephen 
 at Venddme, Pierre marched at the head of 
 one of the processions. 
 
 " The children are all bewitched," said old 
 Frangois, coming to comfort Marie. Now that 
 
PIERRE. 43 
 
 their children were gone, the parents no longer 
 called the wood-cutter a croaker. But Marie 
 would not be comforted. 
 
 Day after day the tears wet her cheeks as she 
 sat at her wheel. Pierre's dog, the one which 
 guarded his flock, would come wistfully into 
 the room and wander here and there smelling 
 and whining. 
 
 " The little one thought that he was right," 
 said old Jacques. " The madness hath seized 
 all the children." 
 
 The days slowly followed the days, and the 
 old people of Cloyes grew very quiet, and 
 grieved away their hours, for in the whole 
 hamlet there was not left a child to cheer them 
 with its laughter, or to make them young with 
 its prattle. 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 IN THE OhAtEAU. 
 
 Safe within the great stone walls of the old 
 chateau, Alise heard naught of the happenings 
 at Cloyes. 
 
 Whenever she found herself thinking of Ste- 
 phen, she wished that so beautiful a boy were 
 not a poor peasant. She thought of miserable 
 Cloyes and its poor houses and their want of 
 all which made her own life so pleasant. 
 
 " I wonder," she~ asked herself, " if he would 
 like to see our great hall and the armor on its 
 walls, and to sit at the great table ? Per- 
 chance he would like to ride my palfrey, or 
 hunt with my falcon, — but no, Frangois hath 
 said that he is a pious child. I know what he 
 would like." 
 
 And she climbed up the spiral stairs to the 
 
 great room above and stood before a statue of 
 44 
 
IN THE CHATEAU. 45 
 
 Our Lady — one which her father in his travels 
 had purchased in Italy. 
 
 " Stephen, I know full well, would love to 
 gaze upon this, and much do I wish that I had 
 him for a playfellow. Ma M^re and the rest 
 I love, but 1 would there were children to talk 
 with." 
 
 But Alise was not given to longings of an 
 idle sort. All her life love had filled her heart 
 to overflowing, and all those about her re- 
 sponded to the love she gave. 
 
 She knew the troubles of each servitor or 
 maiden about the castle, and it kept her busy 
 lending an ear to even the grumblers. The 
 poor fool who amused the retainers with his 
 jests found his little mistress a friend in his 
 moments of seriousness. Into her ear he 
 poured the story of the mother who had loved 
 him, and of the father who had gained gold 
 through the misfortune of his poor misshapen 
 son. 
 
 Sometimes it troubled her mother, the Lady 
 Bertrade, that Alise was so tender-hearted, for 
 \(%11 she knew that it meant much suffering. 
 
46 THE LITTLE CKUSADEES. 
 
 Then she put away the selfish thought and 
 thanked God that her child was as she was. 
 
 She herself was very gentle. Alise thought 
 her the most beautiful mother in all France. 
 She was tall, and stately, and her skin was soft 
 and white like Alise's, but her hair was dark, 
 and it waved about her brows, and her eyes 
 were soft and brown and her lips ever ready 
 to frame excuses for the shortcomings of 
 others. 
 
 Alise was blonde like her father, and she was 
 so fair and her hair so golden that her very 
 look seemed to suggest the gentleness of love 
 itself. The tenderness of her heart had a charm 
 as subtile as the scent of some sweet-smelling 
 lily. It seemed to steal into the very air itself, 
 and before people quite understood what had 
 happened to them, they, too, were pleasant and 
 smiling, thinking gentle thoughts and saying 
 loving words. 
 
 " Thou hast, the gift of gifts," her mother 
 once told her. " Keep loving and tender thy 
 heart, mon enfant, and thou shalt do thine own 
 work in the world." « 
 
IN THE CHATEAU. 47 
 
 Alise wondered what her mother meant, 
 but too many things came to pass in the 
 castle for her to lose time by thinking about 
 herself. 
 
 For one thing, there were the merchants, 
 ever more numerous and more heavy laden as 
 the crusades made possible the bringing west- 
 ward of the treasures of the East. They wore 
 long peaked beards and pointed caps, and when 
 they opened their packs there were costly furs, 
 embroidered cushions, curtains of purple dye, 
 pavilions worked with gold, banners of cloth 
 of gold, showy costumes, the rare tissues of 
 Damascus, glassware from Tyre, silk stuffs from 
 Mosul or Alexandria. 
 
 Then there were the pilgrims, and the friars 
 who sought shelter for the night, but best of 
 all there were the trouv6res. When one of 
 these wandering minstrels came the whole 
 castle rejoiced, for, at the magic sound of the 
 singer's lute, its every-day dulness would 
 vanish as surely as the winter's snow yieldeth 
 to the sun of spring. Then the retainers would 
 gather in the hall. If 'twere winter the great 
 
48 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 fire would blaze in the center, its smoke ascend- 
 ing through a funnel-shaped opening in the 
 ceiling. 
 
 The Lady Bertrade would mount the carved 
 chair of state on the dais, and Ahse, all pretty- 
 in some soft gown, would steal after her, and 
 would sit on a stool at her feet, and cuddle her- 
 self up against her knee in the softness of her 
 velvet robe. The Lady Bertrade's white hand 
 would steal to the child's curls, or to the soft 
 curve of her cheek, and there they would sit in 
 listening contentment, as the minstrel, touch- 
 ing his lute, would begin his tale of ad- 
 venture. 
 
 In the hall was a great wax taper divided 
 into notches. "When the flame traveled so far 
 as a notch, a string would burn and let fall 
 with a crash a ball in the basin below and an 
 hour would be gone. When a certain ball 
 which marked the half hour before midnight 
 would clang in the basin, the minstrel would 
 cease story or song, the company would rise, 
 the night torches be brought, and all would 
 to bed. 
 
IN THE CHATEAU. 49 
 
 In her whole life, Alise had been beyond 
 Cloyes but once. It was then that she had 
 gone with her mother to Chartres and had 
 seen Stephen. 
 
 It was on Black Crosses' Day and had come 
 to pass in this fashion. On the festival of St. 
 Mark there was, in those ancient days, a cus- 
 tom of saying the Greater Litany in memory of 
 those who had died while gone on a pilgrimage 
 to Palestine. In the churches the altars were 
 draped in black, and the people and priests 
 went through the streets chanting prayers and 
 carrying crosses hung with mourning. From 
 this custom the day came to be known as 
 " Black Crosses' Day." 
 
 Lady Bertrade had taken Alise thither that 
 she might offer prayers for her father who had 
 died on the way to Jerusalem. Certainly, the 
 good Father Sebastian had none in his congre- 
 gation who lent a more attentive ear than little 
 Alise d'Estivet of Cloyes. 
 
 Her face glowed with indignation when he 
 described the suflferings of the pilgrims, and 
 she hung her head in shame for Christendom 
 
50 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 when the good cur6 declared that God would 
 turn His face away from His people if these 
 outrages were permitted to continue. He 
 looked so fierce, and shook his finger with such 
 vehemence in the faces before him that many 
 then and there made vows in their hearts to 
 join in the labors of the next Holy War. 
 When he described the fearful cruelties which 
 had been suffered by the pilgrims the church 
 echoed with sobs. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " cried Alise when, service 
 ended, they found themselves on the street. 
 " It is all so sad. I could not let my father go 
 on a crusade if now he were with us." 
 
 " Not for our dear Lord, my little one ? " 
 And her mother looked earnestly into the up- 
 turned blue eyes. " Hemember, ma petite, thou, 
 too, art a crusader. On thy forehead in bap- 
 tism was marked the Holy Cross and ever 
 thou, too, must put first our Lord. He is thy 
 captain, and thou, as a soldier, must follow 
 where He calls, even to the giving up of thy 
 dearest." 
 
 " Oh, mother," and Alise's eyes glowed as 
 
IN THE CHATEAU. 51 
 
 she remembered what her mother had given 
 up — even her dearesti " Thou art right. I too 
 would do it for our Lord." 
 
 In the church Alise had noticed two boys, 
 one slender and strangely beautiful with a 
 cloud of golden hair and eyes filled with a 
 strange yearning, as if longing for things which 
 as yet they never had seen. He was kneeling 
 upon the floor, his hand pressed against his 
 breast, the tears freely flowing down his cheeks 
 as the cure told of the tortures of the pilgrims. 
 The other was like a brave field fiower beside 
 some rare blossom. He was sturdy with a 
 frank, manly, honest little figure and a face 
 which told the story of a healthy soul and a 
 brave heart. He looked as if the stones of 
 the floor hurt his knees, and as if he wished 
 the service would end and the processions be- 
 gin. 
 
 On the road homeward Alise spoke of these 
 boys. 
 
 " One, mother, looked like an angel, the other 
 like the Sieur Eaoul." 
 
 Alise never forgot her vision of the beauti- 
 
52 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 ful boy, and when she met him in Oloyes she 
 was filled with delight. 
 
 " The other must have been Pierre," she told 
 her mother. 
 
 " I wish they were not peasants. I would 
 like them for playfellows." 
 
 After the visit to Chirtres Alise was more 
 anxious than ever to hear of crusades and the 
 Holy Land. Oft would she seek her mother 
 at her needlework in the great upper room, 
 and drawing her stool across its marble floor 
 would sit at her feet and entreat her to tell her 
 of her father and of how he went forth to the 
 Holy Land. 
 
 The gentle Lady Bertrade, stroking her hair, 
 would tell in her sweet way of how men, long- 
 ing for many years to serve God, were made 
 crusaders through the preaching of one Peter 
 whom men called the Hermit, and how war- 
 riors to prove their love for Christ had put 
 on the cross and gone to the rescue of the 
 tomb. 
 
 " They were cross-bearers, little one. Father 
 Augustine hath told me of how the word hath 
 
IN THE CHATEAU. 63 
 
 its meaning in the Latin word crux which he 
 saith doth stand for cross. Thy father, petite, 
 was a true cross-bearer for he died in the sav- 
 ing of another." 
 
 And then Lady Bertrade told Alise what it 
 meant to wear the cross, and of the putting 
 away of self, and the bearing of burdens for 
 others, and she spoke tenderly of the day when 
 Christ toiled towards Calvary, the heavy cross 
 upon His back. His head bent low for all the 
 world. 
 
 Different, indeed, was her talk from that of 
 Stephen's, which had for its text processions 
 and tombs, victories and crowns. 
 
 And then she told Alise of her father, and 
 of how on his journey towards Palestine he had 
 paused to nurse one ill of a grievous disease 
 and had fallen himself a prey to the sick- 
 ness. 
 
 " Thou, ma petite," she said, " mayst become 
 a crusader like thy father, though thou art but 
 a girl and mayst not leave these walls." 
 
 Alise's eyes sparkled. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " she said. " And wilt thou 
 
54: THE LITTLE CRUSADEES. 
 
 make me a cross, and let me wear it upon my 
 breast, and when I shall see it, it shall be a 
 sign to remind me of the deeds I am to do. I 
 thought that to be a crusader meant the fight- 
 ing of Saracens, and the journeying to Pales- 
 tine." 
 
 " But no, Alise. It meaneth far more. The 
 way of the cross is by self-denial and not by 
 glory. Too often," she said sadly, " our knights 
 and warriors forget this in the shedding of 
 blood. I thank God, little one, that thy father, 
 who taught me these things, died in a deed of 
 mercy and not in one of blood." 
 
 On the next day, the Lady Bertrade, who 
 was rarely skilful with the needle, worked a 
 cross on the front of Alise's tunic. 
 
 "Thou art now a child of the cross," she 
 said, and then kissed her. " A little crusader ! " 
 
 Alise skipped away through the hall in search 
 of old M6re Matilde, that she might show her 
 her new adornment. At an upper window she 
 caught sight of a russet gown. 
 
 " Mere Matilde ! Mere Matilde ! " Apd she 
 ran towards her. 
 
IN THE CHATEAU. 55 
 
 But her nurse, whose portly self was thrust 
 ■well out the window, held up one round fat 
 finger for silence, reaching back her hand with- 
 out turning her head. 
 
 " Hark ! Come listen, little one, and let thy 
 young ears tell if that be music I hear ! " 
 
 Together they listened. 
 
 " Of a truth, 'tis music and singing ! " cried 
 Alise. " Dost hear, Mere Matilde ? " 
 
 The old'nurse nodded. 
 
 " And 'tis strange that I hear the songs of 
 the old crusaders — the songs I heard in my 
 youth." 
 
 " List ! " cried Alise, and both thrust out their 
 heads into the fresh spring air. 
 
 " Lord, restore to us the holy cross ! " 
 " Lord, restore Christendom ! " 
 
 They could now hear the words. 
 
 Full of excitement, they craned their necks 
 to their utmost. 
 
 "Look!" cried Alise. "Mere Matilde, 
 look ! " 
 
 She pointed eagerly to a field beyond the 
 
 walls. 
 
56 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 Through a meadow along the Loir, sweeping 
 down the long grass as it passed, went a strange 
 little procession. Its leader bore the triple- 
 tongued flag of France, the crimson Oriflamme. 
 Behind him came a line of boys, and as they 
 sang they marched toward Cloyes. 
 
 " Mfire Matilde ! " cried Alise, in wild excite- 
 ment, " what meaneth'it ? " 
 
 The old woman shook her head. 
 
 " I know not, little lady. 'Tis strange for 
 children to be about without their elders, but 
 these are indeed strange times, and nobody 
 knows what is likely to happen next. But, 
 come, 'tis chill for thee here." 
 
 " Oh, M6re Matilde," cried Alise, who wished 
 to see the last of the procession, " 'tis warm 
 in the sun." 
 
 " Bah ! " and Matilde shrugged her shoulders. 
 " Thou, indeed, knowest more than thy elders. 
 'Tis the day of children. But tell me, child," 
 she said suddenly, "what meaneth that sign 
 upon thy dress ? " 
 
 "'Tis my cross," answered Alise, and her 
 face flushed with shame that she had forgotten 
 
IN THE CHATEAU. 57 
 
 and been disobedient. " I will come in, Mere 
 Matilde. 'Tis chill, as thou sayst." 
 
 And then, as they descended the stairs, she 
 told her of the cross and of its everyday 
 meaning. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Teult there was much talk in the castle con- 
 cerning crusades. The merchants and the 
 priests brought tales of the crusaders and the 
 trouvfires sang of little else. 
 
 Mere Matilde, too, had her stock of stories, 
 and Alise loved nothing better than to hear 
 them. The strangest of all was that of the 
 " Old Man of the Mountain," which tale the 
 old woman declared she had heard from a trou- 
 vere who had remained over night in the castle 
 in the lifetime of Alise's father. 
 
 She told it to the little lady on the night of 
 the day when they had heard the children 
 singing the songs of the crusaders. 
 
 She had brought thither her little mistress 
 
 to put her to bed, and the two were alone in 
 
 the great vaulted chamber. It was a huge 
 
 room and the walls were paneled and hung 
 58 
 
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 59 
 
 with tapestry which swung hard and flapped 
 against the wood when the wind blew. In a 
 brazier of burnished copper in the far end of 
 the room was burning a mixture of cinnamon, 
 bay, rosemary, and the fragrant smell rose 
 high to the ceiling. 
 
 " It was long before thou wert born, little 
 one," began the old woman. " Thy father, our 
 Sieur Kaymond, sat in the hall, and thy mother 
 was a fair, pretty " 
 
 " She is fair and pretty now," interrupted 
 Alise, her face firing, " the most beautiful in 
 the world." 
 
 " Tes, yes, but not as she was then. Thou 
 shouldst have seen her in a rare tunic of white 
 samite, all over with gold crescents, and her 
 mantle crimson, and edged with jewels which 
 gleamed like the hidden sun touching the edge 
 of the dark storm-cloud. About her slender 
 waist was a girdle set with gems which flashed 
 as she moved. St. Margaret, but my lady was 
 fair ! Never, little one, wilt thou look as thy 
 mother. There are no pretty maidens now as 
 when I Avas young. It chanced that on that 
 
60 THE LITTLE CKUSADEES. 
 
 night a trouvSre happened at the castle, and 
 while the wind howled about its walls he told 
 us the story of the ' Old Man of the Mountain.' 
 He said that far, far away there lived a terrible 
 old man in a great strong castle many times 
 larger than this, and that no one, however 
 strong, dare attack this castle." 
 
 " But why not, M6re Matilde ? " 
 
 " For the dread of dragons, little lady, great 
 fiery dragons with mouths like caves that belch 
 out smoke and scorching flames. They, the 
 trouvere said, do keep people from entering. 
 The castle is on a great high mountain, and the 
 name of its owner is Hassassin. Men call him 
 the Old Man of the Mountain." 
 
 Matilde lowered her voice as she uttered this 
 awful name, and Alise, with a chilly feeling 
 creeping down her back, looked fearfully about, 
 her eyes resting uneasily upon the grotesque 
 faces and writhing dragons of an old covered 
 chest, then traveling to the walls where the 
 spring gale was blowing to and fro the hang- 
 ings on which was the story of the Prodigal 
 Son. 
 
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 61 
 
 The breeze would bring this wayward young 
 man suddenly into the light, and then as sud- 
 denly vanish him into the darkness which shad- 
 owed the wall. It had a terrifying effect and 
 made Alise creep closer to her nurse. 
 
 " And such strange things as go on within 
 those walls ! " 
 
 Mere Matilde making smooth Alise's curls, 
 went on with her story. 
 
 " "Why, little one, the trouv^re said that the 
 Old Man of the Mountain hath only to wish 
 for a thing, great or small, while he rubbeth a 
 magic lamp and, behold, it is there. They have 
 it that his castle sprang up in a single night! " 
 
 " O Mere Matilde, how fine ! Truly I would 
 that I were like him." 
 
 " The saints forbid ! " and old Matilde caught 
 the child in her arms. " 'Tis the work of the 
 Devil, little one. IS'evertheless, 'tis fine to 
 gaze upon. The castle sparkles with jewels, 
 slaves bow down and do only the Old Man's 
 bidding. Oh that thou, little one, couldst have 
 heard the trouv6re. St. Paulo, but he told of 
 splendor ! " 
 
62 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " But, Mere Matilde," interrupted Alise, her 
 hand on her nurse's knee, " how did he know ? 
 The dragons, thou didst say, kept all from 
 entering." 
 
 For a moment the old woman looked 
 troubled. She furrowed her brow, and took 
 her full red underlip between her teeth. Sud- 
 denly her face broke into a smile. 
 
 " Trouveres, little one, you must know, may 
 go everywhere. Doubtless, the Old Man of the 
 Mountain loveth a good story when he hears 
 it. He hath many followers, and he sendeth 
 them forth on errands for the slaying of men. 
 They hate the crusaders and they creep, creep, 
 creep up behind one without even a sound, and 
 then, like the stealthy panther, quickly spring 
 they on their prey, and behold, the brave 
 knight lies dead. Kings, even, are not safe. 
 Already hath one been slain, for when the ter- 
 rible Hassassin wUls that a man shall die 
 naught but God hath power to save him." 
 
 Matilde lowered her voice to a whisper. 
 Alise shivered and laid hold of her gown with 
 one hand. 
 
THE OLD MAN OP THE MOUNTAIN. 63 
 
 " Oh look, look ! " she cried in terror. 
 
 But it was only the father of the Prodigal 
 Son swinging slowly out of the darkness. 
 
 " He wants children, boys and girls, and he 
 sendeth his men to purchase them. "When the 
 children are fair to look upon, then there is the 
 danger. He shutteth them fast in his castle 
 and traineth them to do his will. Oh, but he 
 is a terrible old man ! Often I have shaken in 
 my shoes with dread that his slaves may come 
 to France. But come now, little one, get thee 
 to bed. Say now thine Our Father, and the 
 Old Man will not get thee." 
 
 Alise did as she was bidden, but she could 
 not help wishing that the carved ceiling was 
 not so high, or her bed so hidden in the 
 shadows. " Oh, Mere Matilde, hearest thou 
 the wind ? " 
 
 Truly a gale was howling about the castle, 
 and it sounded like the wailing of an army of 
 sufferers. 
 
 " St. Paulo, but it blows ! " And the old 
 woman bent low to pick up Alise's little gown 
 from the floor. 
 
64 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " I feel as if stealing upon me were a slave 
 of the Old Man," whispered Alise from her 
 bed. 
 
 " No, no," answered her old nurse piously 
 crossing herself. " God protects the good, and 
 thy heart, little one, is pure and holy. Pray 
 thou for the sufferers in the Holy Land, and 
 thou shalt forget thyself. ISTevertheless, I will 
 sit by thee. Say again thine Our Father, and 
 shut thine eyes." 
 
 Then she lighted the night lamp, and made 
 ready a place for herself by the bed of Alise. 
 The light made weird figures on the floor and 
 the myrtle plant which grew in the casement 
 kept tapping against the lattice, while, ever and 
 anon, the Prodigal Son, hating the darkness, 
 came forth to seek the light. 
 
CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE SIETJR EAOUL. 
 
 Next morning, at the hour when the sun 
 shone full on the turrets of the castle, the horn 
 sounded at the gate, and Alise, from an upper 
 window, caught sight of two knights seeking 
 entrance. 
 
 " 'Tis my uncle Louis and the Sieur Raoul," 
 she called, rushing into the hall where her 
 mother sat at work with her maidens. 
 
 The Lady Bertrade, witH a joy no less than 
 Alise's, met them in the doorway. 
 
 " Welcome," and she smiled with a sweet 
 graciousness. 
 
 " Welcome, my uncle, welcome ! " And 
 Alise clung to the hand of the foremost of the 
 strangers. 
 
 " Welcome, Messire ! " And she greeted 
 Count Kaoul more sedately, but with a light in 
 her upturned face. 
 
 5 6S 
 
66 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " For tlie Sieur Eaoul is my very best friend," 
 she often told her mother. 
 
 They were indeed noble-looking visitors. 
 The Count Eaoul d'Alengon was tall, and sin- 
 gularly handsome, with broad noble brow, blue 
 eyes, and short curling black hair. Laying 
 aside his armor he appeared in a short mantle 
 of l^forman cut, over a close dress of chamois 
 leather. Count Louis, on the contrary, was 
 fair, and appeared in braver garments, all of 
 tawny velvet embroidered in braid of gold, with 
 a jeweled dagger hanging from a belt about 
 his waist, and he had a merry laugh, and took 
 the world lightly, and was ever making jests 
 at which his sister, being very serious, knew 
 not how much to laugh. 
 
 "With the arrival of these knights and their 
 pages and their squires the whole castle awoke 
 to life. 
 
 A feast was made ready and all gathered 
 about the great board. 
 
 " Hast heard the news of Cloyes and its hero, 
 my lady ? " inquired the Sieur d'Alengon 
 addressing Lady Bertrade. 
 
THE SIEUR RAOUL. 67 
 
 " Of Cloyes ? " And she answered in sur- 
 prise. " What hath happened in the hamlet ? 
 'Tis days since any went thither from the 
 castle." 
 
 " Hath not rumor of one Stephen reached 
 thee ? " 
 
 " But no, Messire. News doth travel slowly 
 to our ears. But who may be this Stephen ? 
 Tell me, 1 pray thee." 
 
 " A mere slip of a lad, my lady, a pretty sprig 
 whom the priests have plucked from the val- 
 ley. So beautiful is he that 'tis said his face is 
 like the angels, though who hath seen them to 
 know, I can tell ye not." 
 
 "'Tis Stephen, 'tis my Stephen!" And 
 Alise plucked at her mother's sleeve. " I saw 
 him at Chartres, thou knowest, and then again 
 at Cloyes. Thou knowest, mother, I told thee 
 of his beauty." 
 
 "But what of this Stephen? " And Lady 
 Bertrade, smiling at Alise, turned towards the 
 Count. 
 
 " He preacbeth a crusade, my lady, a cru- 
 sade of children, and the lanes of our land are 
 
68 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 thronged with boys marching with banners, and 
 singing the old songs of Bernard and the 
 crusaders. Strange that ye, so near to Cloyes, 
 have heard naught of what stirreth France." 
 
 " But we have," cried Alise in great excite- 
 ment ; " 'twas then a procession of Stephen's 
 which Mere Matilde and I saw from the tur- 
 ret." 
 
 With her mother's permission she told of the 
 Oriflamme, and the procession and the songs of 
 the crusaders. 
 
 " The lanes are full of them," continued the 
 Count. " This Stephen tells of strange visions 
 which came to him while he watched his sheep. 
 Once, he saith, our Lord Himself appeared to 
 him in the form of a pilgrim, and commanded 
 him to arouse the children of the land, and go 
 to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. He gave 
 the lad a letter to the king commanding him to 
 sanction the crusade. After rousing the chil- 
 dren hereabouts he sought St. Denys and the 
 king." 
 
 " Preaching at St. Denys ! " cried the lady in 
 surprise. " Tell me, Messire, with what result ? " 
 
THE SIEUR RAOUL, 69 
 
 " Children, my lady, are rising all over 
 France. They hail this Stephen as a prophet. 
 He hath with him one Pierre who also hath 
 power over the children." 
 
 " 'Tis the one who looketh like thee, Sieur 
 Kaoul," broke in Alise. " He was found in the 
 woods when a babe and brought up with the 
 shepherds of Cloyes." 
 
 " Doth look like me, little one ? " And the 
 count laughed. " The resemblance, my Alise, 
 doth end there, for no sympathy have I with 
 these visions." 
 
 " "What saith the king ? " inquired Lady 
 Bertrade, pulling close her mantle as a gust of 
 wind entered at the door with old Matilde. 
 
 " The king, my lady ? Oh, his majesty hath 
 referred the matter to the University of Paris, 
 whichhath ordered the whole thing stopped, — 
 most sensibly according to my way of think- 
 ing. And he hath ordered, also, the issuing of 
 an edict forbidding preaching to children, but " 
 — and he shrugged his shoulders — " who can 
 stop the flow of a river, or check the rising of 
 the tide ? Each day seeth the excitement 
 
(TO THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 spread. Men and women, boys and girls are 
 espousing the cause and assuming the cross of 
 war. Stephen hath promised them that God 
 will dry the waters of the sea, and that they 
 shall march in safety to the Holy Land." 
 
 " And surely enough, my Eaoul, by the time 
 the army starts, 'twill be warm enough to do it." 
 
 It was the Count Louis who spoke, and he 
 held the whole thing in derision. 
 
 " No, Louis, jest not," said his sister softly. 
 " Do we not believe that God watcheth over 
 even the sparrows ? "Will He not guard and 
 guide these little ones ? Are they not children, 
 and did He not say to suffer them to come unto 
 Him ? Father Sebastian hath told me of His 
 promises." 
 
 " Count Eaoul," it was Alise's little voice, 
 and she crept close to his side, and looked up 
 in his face in her sweet, earnest way, " was it 
 indeed our Lord who came to Stephen 1 " 
 
 The Count hesitated. 
 
 " Dear little Alise," and the voice of the 
 Seigneur grew reverent and sweet, " I cannot 
 tell thee, petite. I do not easily believe mar- 
 
THE SIEUR RAOUL. Yl 
 
 vels, but can I gainsay that God hath chosen 
 this way to do His work ? But this I do know, 
 little one, many hearts are aching now for the 
 children who have forsaken their parents. 
 'Tis hard to believe that God who hath com- 
 manded us to honor our parents should take 
 this way to do His work." 
 
 " And thou knowest, Eaoul," put in Count 
 Louis who had been amusing himself with a 
 great sleepy hound which lay at his feet, " there 
 are those who scruple not to say that the whole 
 thing is the work of one not God." 
 
 "Of whom then, uncle?" cried Alise, her 
 great eyes full of interest. 
 
 " There are people, sweet, and the Sieur de la. 
 Pierre is one, who declare it to be the work of 
 magic, of Satan himself. Others, and of these 
 there are not a few, maintain that the Old 
 Man of the Mountain," — at this awful name 
 Alise shivered and drew closer to the Count, 
 and all the company crossed themselves, — 
 " hath liberated two clerks whom long he held 
 captive and hath sent them to France to bring 
 to their master this army of children." 
 
72 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " And strange signs bave come to pass," put 
 in Count Louis, pulling at the ear of the hound. 
 
 " Great clouds of butterflies, innocent and 
 white as the children themselves, have risen 
 and flown on light wings towards the sea, dis- 
 appearing eastward over its blueness; and in 
 one place, 'tis said, birds, though it be not the 
 season, have gathered and face towards the 
 south. In Brittany where the English rule it 
 is the same. Fishes and frogs have multiplied 
 as if by a miracle, while at Manshymer in 
 Champagne, report doth say, a numberless 
 multitude of dogs gathered together, divided 
 into parties and engaged in fight until almost 
 all were exterminated." 
 
 The next morning Alise entreated Count 
 Raoul to tell her more of Stephen. 
 
 " I know but little, my child," he said, strok- 
 ing her hair. 
 
 " Hast heard him preach, Messire ? " 
 
 " Once, little one, — at St. Denys, — and truly 
 the boy hath a beautiful face." 
 
 Alise nodded. 
 
 It always pleased her to have her friends 
 
THE SIEUR RAOUL. Id 
 
 admired, and such she now considered 
 Stephen. 
 
 " "Wore he his shepherd's dress, messire ? " 
 
 The Count nodded assent. 
 
 " He stood, little one, at the door of the 
 Church wherein lieth the body of the blessed 
 St. Denys. About him were gathered men, 
 women, and children. And, truly, when the 
 lad speaks 'tis with the golden tongue of 
 Chrysostom." 
 
 "And what said he ? " 
 
 " He spoke of the wrongs of the pilgrims, of 
 the cruelties of the Saracens, and when he 
 told of his vision 'twas as if a veil had been 
 lifted, and one caught a glimpse of Heaven." 
 
 " And 'tis said," put in Count Louis, saunter- 
 ing up through the hall, " that the young saint 
 doth heal the sick, and perform divers 
 miracles." 
 
 " Would that I might hear him ! I, too, 
 long to go upon the children's crusade." 
 
 " Not much, pretty flower," cried her uncle, 
 and he frowned -at Count Eaoul to say no 
 more on the subject. 
 
74 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " Be thou our good little saint and do thy 
 crusading in the castle. But come now, to the 
 death with thy crusades,— we will sally forth 
 and try those falcons my sister hath purchased 
 of the Brittany merchant." 
 
 So across the drawbridge they went, down 
 to the meadows where the Loir stole through 
 the grass. The willows looked yellow and 
 pale green in the early spring sunlight, and, 
 when Alise's foot stirred a noise among the 
 dry leaves in a little hollow, a rabbit sprang 
 out from a log over a little brook bed, and 
 Avent bounding up the bank. Flowers were 
 peeping up, here and there, and the fleur-de- 
 lys was growing at the edge of the brook. 
 The air was soft and full of the balm of spring, 
 and, in watching the trained flights of the 
 birds, Alise forgot grave topics in the jocund 
 gladness about her. 
 
 But those were not the days of repose. 
 
 There was always a call to strife and to 
 warfare, and so it happened that, as the little 
 party in their velvet and plumes, their falcons 
 on their wrists, turned into a lane leading to 
 
THE SIEUE RAOUL. Y5 
 
 Cloyes, they came face to face with a processiou 
 of little crusaders. 
 
 At its head walked a boy bearing the Ori- 
 flamine, and its triple tongue rose full with the 
 breeze, whipped itself into folds with a swish, 
 then unfurled, and floated clear above the 
 heads of its followers. 
 
 They were boys and girls, and each bore a 
 wax candle, and their faces were lifted upward. 
 Here and there, one carried a censer, and as 
 the smoke of the incense rose in perfumed 
 waves, the bees, puzzled, lingered hesitatingly 
 over their favorite flowers. 
 
 Here and there was lifted a cross, and on 
 each breast was the sign of the crusader. 
 
 " What seek ye ? " asked the Sieur Eaoul and, 
 pausing, he looked the leader full in the face. 
 
 "Jerusalem, messire, Jerusalem, and the tomb 
 of our Lord ! " 
 
 And then the whole procession broke into 
 speech. 
 
 " Dieu le volt ! It is the will of God," they 
 cried. ""We seek the Holy City, Jerusalem 
 and the Tomb ! " 
 
76 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " God will care for us. "We go to do His 
 work," explained the leader, when Count Louis 
 spoke of the dangers of the trip. 
 
 As they passed onward their voices floated 
 back on the breeze, " Dieu le volt ! Dieu le 
 volt ! " And the last that Alise saw of them 
 they were pausing to kneel before a wayside 
 figure of Christ. 
 
AT ST. DENYS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AT ST. DENTS. 
 
 Five miles north of Paris is the city of St. 
 Denys. In the time of Stephen it was the 
 castom for religious people to make pilgrimages 
 thither to the tomb of the famous Saint Diony- 
 sius, first bishop of Paris. This saint, people 
 believed, could work miracles, even when 
 dead, and so they bore to the tomb the sick 
 and diseased. There were many marvelous 
 stories told of St. Dionysius, the strangest 
 being that, after very cruel treatment, he was 
 beheaded and his body thrown into the Seine ; 
 not fancying this watery grave, he arose 
 from the river, and bearing his own head, 
 walked two miles to the place which he de- 
 sired for his final resting-place. 
 
 Over his grave had been erected a church, 
 in whose crypt lay the bodies of the kings of 
 
 France from the time of Dagobert. At St. 
 
 77 
 
78 THE LITTLE CKUSADEES. 
 
 Denys, too, was kept the sacred Oriflamme, or 
 triple-tongued banner of France. 
 
 It was on a May morning that two pilgrims, 
 passing near the sepulchre of St. Denys, were 
 struck by the unusual beauty of a boy stand- 
 ing within the shadow of the church. 
 
 " Compere," said the younger of the pilgrims, 
 a girl of fifteen, to the gray-haired man at her 
 side, " the boy hath purpose to speak. Let us 
 draw near and hear his words." 
 
 "With him were a few children, and both he 
 and his followers wore crosses of red upon 
 their breasts. 
 
 Seeing the man and girl pause, two soldiers 
 swaggering by stopped also. Attracted by the 
 group, a beggar dragged his infirmities from 
 the street to the church. Then tarried some 
 women with children at their skirts, and two 
 men driving a cart-load of fagots let fall their 
 whips and stared, open-mouthed, to see what 
 was happening. Shortly, the street was blocked 
 with people, ox-carts, a courser of a knight, a 
 palfrey of a ladj^, and basket-shaped wagons 
 of unpeeled boughs full of charred sticks drawn 
 
AT ST. DENYS. 79 
 
 by three horses in line "with bells on their high 
 yokes. The drivers of these wagons were char- 
 coal burners, and their heads were bare, and 
 they wore black smocks down almost to their 
 wooden shoes, and their faces were grimy and 
 the hands which held the whips were toil- 
 worn and black. 
 
 " Compare," whispered the girl to her com- 
 panion, " 'tis the Stephen of whom we have 
 heard. I know it by the red crosses." 
 
 And her face flushed, and her lips parted in 
 eagerness. 
 
 Listening, the crowd heard the boy tell of a 
 wonderful vision he had seen, a vision of his 
 Lord who had commanded him to preach the 
 crusade of the children. 
 
 The news spread. 
 
 The pilgrims crowded about the church ; 
 women left their washing by the streams and 
 hastened to hear ; the charcoal burners tarried ; 
 and the children of St. Denys, leaving play, 
 came in haste to hear the little boy preaching. 
 
 The town was full of pilgrims from all parts 
 of France, and they bent ready ears to the 
 
80 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 wonder. Morning and evening Stephen spoke, 
 and the pilgrims returning to their homes bore 
 the news over France. 
 
 There was in the boy's voice the ring of 
 truth. His faith was pure and strong. He 
 never doubted his vision, and they who heard 
 him believed because he believed. 
 
 " Our Lord," he said, and his face was full of 
 wistful sweetness, " suffered for ye. He was 
 scourged, he was betrayed, he was crucified. 
 What do ye for him ? " 
 
 It came as the question of a loving, grateful 
 little heart, and when Stephen paused, it was 
 answered by hundreds assuming the cross, 
 for to hear, with those who listened, meant 
 to do. 
 
 " Go not, Jehannette," and the gray-haired 
 pilgrim laid a restraining hand on the arm of his 
 goddaughter, but it was in vain, for with 
 beaming face and glowing eyes, she pressed 
 forward, and returned not to the old man until 
 the cross was on her breast, the vow upon her 
 lips. 
 
 "Compare! Compere!" she cried. "I am 
 
AT ST. DENYS. 81 
 
 now a crusader. I will not return to Yaucou- 
 leurs. I shall seek the tomb with Stephen." 
 At the close of the sermon came the hymns. 
 
 " Lord, restore to us the Holy Cross I " 
 " Lord, restore to us Christendom ! " 
 
 " Our feet, our feet," they sang, " shall stand, 
 shall stand within thy walls, within thy walls. 
 Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! " 
 
 One late afternoon, when the sermon had 
 been preached, Stephen, as usual, took his 
 place at the head of the little procession of 
 children. 
 
 Instead of the crusader's hymns, the boy 
 prophet, as men now chose to call him — 
 holding aloft a crucifix, began the song of old 
 Zacharias — 
 
 " Benedictus ! Benedictus ! " 
 
 His voice was sweeter than the throstle in 
 the hedge, or the nightingale in the deep wood, 
 and it rose, quivered, gathered force, and as 
 they marched, floated far and free on the quiet 
 evening air. 
 
 As he sang the children joined him, and then 
 
82 THE LITTLE CEUSADEES. 
 
 the people, taking up the chant in mighty 
 voice. 
 
 The appropriateness of the words made their 
 own appeal. 
 
 " And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet 
 of the Highest." 
 
 At the moment when these words sounded 
 full on the air the bells of the church of St. 
 Denys chimed out the Angelus, as if in Amen 
 to the words of the song. 
 
 And even while the Ave Marias were 
 being said, there were many who were asking 
 themselves if this were not a sign to tell them 
 that the child spoke true. 
 
 So the preaching went on, and the little 
 children who heard Stephen doubted not that 
 God had sent him. 
 
 One day there came to St. Denys the Lady 
 Bertrade and Alise. 
 
 They were passing through the town on their 
 way to visit the father of the countess, one Sir 
 Hugo, a famous old crusader who dwelt in the 
 neighborhood of Paris. 
 
 Lady Bertrade, listening to the singing, felt 
 
AT ST. DENYS. 83 
 
 her eyes fill with tears at the thought of these 
 little children and their faith. And of her 
 tenderness was born the determination of going 
 with them on their journey. 
 
 " I have longed to labor for our Lord," she 
 thought, "and now here cometh the way. 
 There will be sickness and trouble, and these 
 little ones will need me." 
 
 In the quiet of the crypt, she told Alise of 
 her purpose. 
 
 The child's face flushed pink. 
 
 " Oh, maman," she whispered, " thou art an 
 angel. And I have thee for my mother," 
 
 And she kissed her hand. 
 
 " And I, mother ? " 
 
 " Thou too, little one, shalt wear the cross." 
 
 Together they sought Stephen. 
 
 When he saw Alise, . his face glowed a wel- 
 come. 
 
 " Thou, too, lovest our Lord," he cried, and 
 fastened on her dress the red cross of the 
 crusader. 
 
 " Kemember, dearest," and her mother's soft 
 hand smoothed back her hair, " with the 
 
8i THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 putting on of the cross thou puttest off self. 
 No more shalt thou think of what thou wouldst 
 desire. A true cross-bearer hath crucified all 
 else but our dear Lord." 
 
 Near by stood a pilgrim, the same brother 
 who had spoken to Stephen at Cloyes before he 
 saw the vision. 
 
 Turning to Lady Bertrade,he said something 
 about the " Via Crucis " and the " Yia Dolo- 
 rosa," and the lady bowed her head. 
 
 " Maman, what meant he ? " asked Alise 
 when he had passed on his way. 
 
 " That the way of the cross and the way of 
 sorrow are the same, and that one is but the 
 name for the other." 
 
 Alise looked puzzled. 
 
 The way of the cross to her just then meant 
 Stephen, and singing, and a wonderful march, 
 and the glories of Jerusalem. 
 
 " 'Tis not a way of sorrow. The sea is to 
 dry before our path," she told her mother, and 
 she skipped at her side in the thought of this 
 most wonderful journey. 
 
 The work went on. 
 
AT ST. DENYS. 85 
 
 Children from castle, as from hut, joined the 
 procession. It was like a madness which 
 stopped not for feolt nor bar, since children 
 broke away from homes even when restrained 
 in their rooms. There were priests at work, 
 some aiding Stephen, but many endeavoring 
 to persuade the children to return to their 
 homes. Evil people, with wicked intentions, 
 feigned goodness and took the cross as a means 
 to disguise their schemes. 
 
 The excitement went throughout the length 
 and breadth of France, a man named John of 
 Hungary preaching in village and town. In 
 Germany an immense army, led by one little 
 Nicholas, marched away crying, " We go to get 
 the cross beyond the sea, and to baptize the 
 Moslems." 
 
 The French children gathered at a place 
 called Vendome, and, during the latter part of 
 June, fifteen thousand, no older than twelve 
 years, came from Paris. And back in Cloyes 
 old Marie was wroth. 
 
 " Banners, indeed ! " she said. " And my 
 Pierrelo gone, and his sheep all neglected, and 
 
86 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 the garden full of weeds. No, Jacques, no, 'tis 
 not God who calls these little ones. Pierre is 
 a good lad, and he went because of false prom- 
 ises. And I had but one child left, Jacques, 
 this one little lamb, not of our fold, but dearer 
 now than all my dead children, and he hath 
 gone from these old arms which rocked him 
 and loved him." 
 
 And her grief was a sad thing to see, and it 
 was fierce, too, like that of a she-animal when 
 it hath lost its cub. At night when the howl 
 of the wolves came from the forest, or the 
 wind beat upon the roof, she would rise as of old, 
 and steal softly to the boy's bed to still his fears, 
 and when she would find it empty and remem- 
 ber, her heart would ache, and she would 
 creep back to old Jacques, and pray to God 
 to watch over the child, and keep him from 
 harm and evil, and, oh, to give him back, to 
 give him back. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE DEPAETUEE. 
 
 It was a day in June. The air was laden 
 with the perfume -of the roses and the clover. 
 Butterflies floated on the gentle breeze which 
 bent northward the fields of grain. Across the 
 blue of the sky traveled the slow white clouds. 
 The land lay green and quiet, and the peasants 
 in the fields moved steadily at their tasks. Up 
 the road two youths drove an ox team, both 
 walking, one holding the whip. In the fields 
 the red cattle slowly chewed their cuds, and 
 from a meadow cape the song of a lark. 
 
 Old Gaston, working painfully in his field — 
 for he was three score, — heard strange sounds. 
 It was like the tramp of an army, but there 
 was no war in the land. 
 
 He slowly straightened his back and stood 
 
 leaning upon his stick. 
 
 87 
 
88 THE LITTLE CEUSADEKS. 
 
 The sound came from beyond that hill, and 
 certainly it was the sound of feet. 
 
 "Watching, he presently saw a horse appear 
 on the brow of the hill. On it sat a boy. Then 
 came another, another, then a chariot, all draped 
 in rare carpets. In it reclined a boy whose hair 
 gleamed gold in the sunlight. Behind him 
 came other boys on horseback, then two chil- 
 dren afoot, then two more, then more and more, 
 some girls, some boys, and they were clad in 
 graj'^, and on each breast was a cross of red, 
 and their hats were broad brimmed, and they 
 each carried a staff. 
 
 On they passed, a line appearing oyer the 
 hill and unwinding as doth the yarn from a 
 ball. 
 
 'Twas a strange sight. Old Gaston's mouth 
 fell open, and he stared in \yonder. 
 
 On came the children, and some carried ban- 
 ners, and others, crosses, and every once in a 
 while in the Une appeared a grown person, or a 
 priest. 
 
 Tip the hills, into the valleys, on they 
 marched, and the boy in the chariot, lifting 
 
THE DEPARTURE. 89 
 
 his voice, began a wonderful song whose notes 
 floated backward and were talcen up by the 
 children until the long line became a moving 
 thread of harmony. 
 
 " Fairest Lord Jesus, 
 Buler of all nature, 
 Thou of Mary and of God the Son ! 
 Thee will I cherish, 
 Thee will I honor. 
 Thee my soul's glory, 3oy,and crown I 
 
 " Fair are the meadows. 
 Fairer still the woodlands. 
 Robed in the blooming garb of Spring, 
 Jesus is fairer, 
 Jesus is purer, 
 Who makes our saddened heart to sing. 
 
 " Fair is the sunshine, 
 Fairer still the moonlight. 
 And the sparkling, starry host, 
 Jesus shines brighter, 
 Jesus shines purer, 
 Than all the angels Heaven can boast." 
 
 " 'Tis the children's crusade," said the driver 
 of the oxen guiding his team to the side of the 
 road. 
 
 The two boys paused to hear and to watch, 
 and when the song was well in their ears, and 
 
90 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 the look of Stephen ia their eyes, they left their 
 oxen, and threw away the whip, and began to 
 march also. 
 
 As the children sang on, the words reached 
 village and town, and out poured the boys and 
 girls, and though their parents commanded and 
 wept, on they also marched over the hill, down 
 the vale, across the river, following the ancient 
 road to Blois. 
 
 In the evening Stephen gave the order to rest. 
 
 Then descended he from his chariot and 
 addressed the army. "When the bell of some 
 neighboring church chimed the Angelus the 
 children bowed their heads and the thirty 
 thousand little voices repeated the Hail Mary, 
 and the Our Father. 
 
 And thus began the march from Yendome. 
 
 Food the children expected to beg of the 
 people of the farms and villages, and water 
 could be had of the sparkling brooks. 
 
 God had said : 
 
 " Ask, and it shall be given j'ou." 
 
 " Take no thought for your life, what ye shall 
 eat." 
 
THE DEPARTURE. 91 
 
 " Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's 
 good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 
 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto 
 me." 
 
 With such texts did Stephen cheer his army 
 when at noon or eve they broke ranks to hear 
 him preach. 
 
 At first all went well ; the songs were in- 
 spiring ; the adventure was new ; and the faith, 
 of the children was unquestioning. Asking 
 nothing of man, they had set off in search of 
 that kingdom which was not to be forbidden 
 to little children. But, presently, the feet be- 
 gan to weary of the endless road, the days 
 were hot, the dust, stirred by thousands of 
 feet, rose in white clouds and made dry the 
 lips and choked the breath. 
 
 " Are we not there ? " the little ones began 
 to cry. 
 
 "Is this Jerusalem?" they asked at the 
 sight of each hamlet or town. 
 
 It grew hotter and hotter, the brooks dried 
 up, the flowers withered in the fields, the moss 
 dried on the stones, and still onward trudged 
 
92 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 the children. The heat, they were told, only 
 proved that God was drying the sea. 
 
 Food became scarce, and, overcome by hun- 
 ger and fatigue, little crusaders began to drop 
 by the way, never again to rise. And the 
 dreadful homesickness seized many and, like 
 people in a frenzy, they would turn and fly 
 from the army, making their way backward as 
 best they knew how. 
 
 The nights were the worst. Then the trou- 
 bles rose into a wail, a wail which found echo 
 in many a home of France. The brave little 
 crusaders going across the sea to fight the Sar- 
 acens wanted their mothers. 
 
 It was then that a beautiful lady in gray 
 began to be loved of the children. She was 
 the great lady of the chateau at Cloyes, and 
 yet she marched on foot like a peasant, and 
 went to and fro among the children, petting, 
 comforting, soothing. 
 
 At her waist was a wallet containing simples, 
 and salves, and ointments, and remedies for all 
 manner of hurts and pains. 
 
 At her side was Alise, no longer in velvet, 
 
THE DEPARTURE. 93 
 
 but clad in a scant, clinging gray gown, and 
 wearing a close little cap. 
 
 Alise, too, had blistered feet and often she 
 was hungry and weary. But before they had 
 started her mother had given her a talisman 
 against weariness. 
 
 " Eemember, petite," she had said, " if thou 
 bearest the cross and walkest in the way of 
 our Lord, thou must remember the weariness 
 of His feet as He bore His cross to Calvary." 
 
 To the older children Lady Bertrade spake 
 as she did to Alise, and so much in earnest 
 were the little believers that they set their 
 lips, conquered their fatigue, and took up the 
 march. 
 
 But over many she had no influence, and 
 selfishness led them to disorder and to fights 
 over the food, and ill-treatment of the younger 
 ones. 
 
 Stephen, alarmed at the discontent, renewed 
 the promise concerning the sea. 
 
 " Soon will we be there," he would say, as 
 each day murmurs arose concerning Jerusalem. 
 
 At last they reached the Ehone and, cross- 
 
94 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 ing, they found themselves in Burgundj''. 
 Here their troubles ceased. 
 
 The crusading spirit was strong among its 
 people. Hundreds joined the ranks, and food 
 was given freely. 
 
 Strengthened and refreshed, the old fire re- 
 turned to the children. "With waving banners 
 and uplifted voices the long line wandered into 
 Provence and found itself in the garden of all 
 Europe. It was a land flowing with milk and 
 honey and blossoming with flowers, and the 
 children wove garlands and twisted them about 
 their banners. 
 
 They stuck sweet sprays of the mignonette in 
 their caps, and filled their hands with the white 
 and red poppies, the gleaming king cup, and 
 the purple iris. "Wandering on with flowers 
 and songs, they passed the moss-grown ruins 
 of the Eoman days, old aqueducts and temples 
 without roofs. 
 
 Sometimes, when the army would pause for 
 rest, little Pierre, longing for his free shepherd 
 life, would steal off to the deep wood, and 
 pushing in through the still greenness, would 
 
THE DEPARTURE. 95 
 
 come close upon the dun deer feeding in some 
 spot distant from man, or, when the wood was 
 not a deep forest, he would stretch at ease 
 under some leafy tree and lie deep in the grass 
 and watch the white clouds journeying across 
 the blue sky. Sometimes a heron would rise 
 on the wing, its long legs dangling against the 
 sky's blueness, and then Pierrelo, being but a 
 little boy, would forget the crusade and the 
 quest for his father and long for a peregrine 
 falcon. One day he stole through the field 
 towards a little hill where rested the army. 
 His knowledge of the out doors made him 
 believe that he should find a spring beyond 
 the hill on the edge of the wood. 
 
 He bounded along singing a gay little tune. 
 Surely this was the spring. He knew by the 
 paths coming from many directions. It gushed 
 out from the crevice between two rocks, and it 
 was well screened by thick shrubs and the steep 
 sides of the hills. He could not see the water 
 itself until he came close upon it, and there, 
 some few feet from the little stone basin hol- 
 lowed out by the water, was sitting a child, a 
 
96 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 little girl in the dress of a crusader, and by her 
 the pilgrim whom Pierre remembered to have 
 met on his road to Oloyes, immediately before 
 Stephen saw the vision. 
 
 The little maid turned, and giving him a 
 smile of inviting welcome, motioned him to 
 silence. 
 
 He looked and understood. 
 
 It was before noon, and the birds were com- 
 ing to the spring to bathe in the waters of the 
 little stone basin. 
 
 Daintily one approached, hopping lightly 
 from spot to spot, its nervous little head first 
 on one side, then on the other. It coquetted 
 with the water, touching it coyly with its feet, 
 then darting into its coolness a sharp little beak. 
 
 At last it gave a plunge, and went plumb 
 down into the depth of the pool, sputtering 
 and shaking its wings, and then suddenly 
 thrusting up its head and looking about as if to 
 say, " Is there the least harm in my bathing ? 
 I assure you there is not." 
 
 Alise was delighted — for the little maid was 
 the small lady of Cloyes, — and she laughed 
 
THE DEPARTURE. §7 
 
 aloud as she made a seat for Pierre on the rock 
 beside her. 
 
 " Thou art Pierre," she said quickly, " 1 saw 
 thee at Ohartres. Brother Sylvestre," and she 
 turned to her companion, " this boy is of Cloyes, 
 and the friend of Stephen." 
 
 The pilgrim smiled a welcome, and the little 
 birds flying away, Pierre, after making his 
 peasant's reverence, requested permission to 
 quench his thirst at the spring. 
 
 It was a June day, and there was that in the 
 air which made one love the fields, and the 
 sound of the water on the rocks, and Pierre 
 drank deeply, resting his hands on the moss of 
 the stones above the brook and putting his 
 mouth well down in the water. 
 
 Then the three sat watching for more birds, 
 and hearing all kinds of the queer noises that 
 the little creatures of the woods make in mov- 
 ing about on their errands. 
 
 And, by and by, Brother Sylvestre talked 
 with them about the birds, telling them of his 
 love for the feathered things in the old home 
 of his childhood. 
 7 
 
98 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 Then more spake he, and told them of a holy 
 man of Assisi, one named for their own land, 
 who gave up for his Lord splendor and wealth 
 and glory that he might found an order among 
 men to make them better ; and of how, passing 
 on his way one day, he had raised his eyes and 
 seen the trees filled with a multitude of birds, 
 and of how he said to his companions, "Await 
 me here in the road, and I will go and preach 
 to my sisters the birds." 
 
 And of how when he opened his mouth they 
 came from the trees and stood quietly until St. 
 Francis finished speaking, and gave them his 
 blessing, and of how they oped their beaks and 
 stretched forth their necks and spread their 
 wings, and reverently bowed their heads even 
 to the earth, and of how when they rose they 
 burst into song, and divided into four parts like 
 to the arms of the cross. 
 
 " Hast seen Francis ? " asked Alise, her little 
 heart tender at the thought of one so gentle. 
 
 Brother Sylvestre nodded slowly. 
 
 " I," he said, " am his follower ; " and, risiug, 
 he led the children back to the army. 
 
THE DEPARTURE. 99 
 
 From the brow of the hill they could see 
 the vast host, thousands upon thousands of 
 little children, some sitting, some standing, 
 children everywhere as far as the eye could 
 reach. 
 
 Alise and Pierre, impatient to return, won- 
 dered that Brother Sylvestre paused so long 
 to gaze upon the army, and* why he sighed 
 when at last he started. 
 
 When they reached the host, the order to 
 march had been given, and the crusaders were 
 falling into line. 
 
 It vfas in the trying times of the journey 
 that Pierre grew to love Brother Sylvestre. 
 
 Though not wearing the cross he marched 
 with the army. He w^as on the road to Italy 
 to counsel with Francis at Assisi, and seeing 
 an opportunity to help others, journeyed with 
 the crusaders. Alise had been his friend from 
 the beginning, and the two had many long 
 talks together, in which the child opened her 
 little heart, and showed him its sweetness. 
 But Pierre attracted him strongl}'^. He felt a 
 certain manly pride in the boy's wholesome 
 
100 THE LITTLE CEUSADBES. 
 
 good looks, in his sturdiness, in his love of 
 everything of the woods. 
 
 Pierre told him of Marie and Jacques and 
 the little house at Cloyes. 
 
 " And thou leftest them ? " asked the Francis- 
 can, his eyes narrowing as he looked Pierre 
 full in the face. 
 
 " For our Lor5," answered the lad, but his 
 tone lacked confidence. The Franciscan had 
 not condemned him, and yet he felt guilty. 
 
 At sunset, when they would pause near some 
 hamlet, and he would hear the village sounds, 
 and see the bees making for their straw-bound 
 hives, the sheep descending the hills, he began 
 asking himself questions about his duty in 
 leaving, and, once, when they were crossing a 
 little brook and the smell of mint came fresh 
 to his nostrils, he had to bite hard on his lips 
 to keep from crying. It brought so to his 
 mind the brook at Cloyes, and the strewn floor 
 of the living room when Marie would sweeten 
 the white earth floor by the sprinkling about 
 of mint sprigs. 
 
 One day in Burgundy Pierre yielded to his 
 
THE DEPARTURE. 101 
 
 homesickness and, creeping away from the army- 
 resting in the heat of the day, he sat down in 
 the roots of a tree and let his eyes grow misty 
 until the fields were no longer green before them. 
 
 " Why grievest thou, Pierrelo ? " 
 
 It was Brother Sylvestre and, stooping, he 
 sat by Pierre on the roots. 
 
 Then the boy told him of his longing for 
 Cloyes and his fear that Marie was grieving. 
 
 For a moment Brother Sylvestre was silent. 
 
 " Thy crusade, my son, hath but now begun. 
 Only now thou art beginning to feel the press- 
 ing of the cross. Didst ever think that thy 
 crusade was to aid thy parents ? " 
 
 Pierre looked puzzled. 
 
 " The crusade," he said, " was to come with 
 Stephen." 
 
 " The crusade, my boy," and the voice of 
 the priest was strong and true, " is to do the 
 will of God, and He hath commanded children 
 to honor and succor their parents. I speak to 
 thee, my boy, as to one well known, for thy 
 face looketh like a face I loved in the old days, 
 and I would set thee upon the true road of 
 
102 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 right living. Eemember, then, that to serve 
 Him who is our Lord meaneth the forgetting 
 of self and our desires, and peace cometh only 
 with the doing of right alone." 
 
 It happened, one day, that Alise, sent by her 
 mother, drew near to speak to Stephen con- 
 cerning some bread for the children. Brother 
 Sylvestre, passing, stopped and gazed upon the 
 two whom he had seen together before at 
 Cloyes. Now, the shepherd boy wore the 
 velvet, the little lady, the homespun. 
 
 He noted how the face of the boy, beauti- 
 ful as ever, had grown in pride and unconcern 
 for others. lie still saw visions,— his eyes told 
 that, — but the visions were no longer of thorns 
 and tombs, bat of victories and crowns. 
 Alise's face, on the contrary, was even more 
 loving than on that day at Cloyes, and in her 
 eyes was the luminous light of love. 
 
 " The first shall be last, and the last, first," 
 he muttered half aloud, and went on his way. 
 
 At Lyons he warned Lady Bertrade against 
 a certain woman making herself prominent 
 among the crusaders. 
 
THE DEPAETURE. 103 
 
 " It may chance that I err," he said, " but 
 there be many evil people in the army, and 
 thy child hath a beauty which would make a 
 slave-dealer long to possess her." 
 
 Alarmed, Lady Bertrade trusted Alise only 
 with Pierre or Brother Sylvestre. 
 
 One day when the army was nearing Mar- 
 seilles a little maid from Vendome addressed 
 Lady Bertrade. 
 
 " Madame," she said, " a woman of the army 
 hath asked me to tell thee that Brother Syl- 
 vestre would have thee return to yonder house. 
 Thy child hath twisted her foot and they have 
 borne her within." 
 
 The house was in the rear of the army, but 
 Lady Bertrade, knowing Alise to be with 
 Brother Sylvestre, turned hastily and went 
 thither. A woman, watching her from behind 
 a tree, laid a pudgy forefinger against the side 
 of her broad nose and smiled craftily. 
 
 By the time Lady Bertrade reached the 
 house the tramp of the small feet sounded far 
 in the distance. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MARSEILLES. 
 
 On went the army with banner and song, 
 the crosses gay with garlands of the flowers 
 of Provence. Presently, before them rose a 
 line of blue hills, and fresh on the soft sum- 
 mer air came a cool smell, and a taste which 
 left salt on the lips, and word went through 
 the ranks that before them, beyond the hills, 
 was the sea — the sea which was to dry before 
 those tired little feet, and let them pass freely 
 to Jerusalem. 
 
 The excitement lent haste to even the 
 weariest, and the poles of the banners quivered 
 in sympathy with the joy of those who bore 
 them. 
 
 On the ridge of the hiUs the first of the 
 
 line paused. Before their inland eyes lay the 
 
 blue Mediterranean, and on its coast the 
 
 strange old city of Marseilles stood safe with- 
 104 
 
MARSEILLES. 105 
 
 in its walls. The waves rolled in and beat 
 upon the land, and a cry burst from the little 
 crusaders. 
 
 "The sea! The sea!" 
 
 " Dieu le volt ! Dieu le volt ! " 
 
 Hark ! 
 
 The people of Marseilles, busy in the streets, 
 paused to listen. Small Denys, son of Anthony 
 the blacksmith, was first to give the alarm. 
 ' " 'Tis music ! " he said, and he -went with 
 a scramble to the roof of the smithy, and stood 
 erect, craning his neck, *his sooty little hand 
 at his ear. " 'Tis tramping ! " he called to his 
 father below. 
 
 " 'Tis children ! " And he curved his hand 
 over his mouth and shouted as through a 
 trumpet. " Look ! Look ! There's two, there's 
 four ; oh, father, father, there's dozens and 
 dozens, and more coming ! " 
 
 The streets filled. People flocked to the 
 gates. 
 
 "Denys, thou are right," cried the black- 
 smith, as he, too, scrambled to the roof. 
 
 Towards the city gates came the children. 
 
106 THE LITTLE CEUSADEES. 
 
 appearing over the hill like a ribbon unwind- 
 ing. Banners, crosses, the Oriflamme itself ! 
 Girls, boys, boys, girls ! The good people of 
 Marseilles rubbed their eyes. 
 
 "Were all the children in Christendom com- 
 ing that way ? Many hurried forth to meet 
 the curious army. 
 
 As they drew near they could hear the 
 words of the song — 
 
 "Thee will I cherish, 
 Thee will I honor." 
 
 And as more came over the hill, 
 
 " Fair are the meadows, 
 Fairer still the woodlands." 
 
 And still more, 
 
 " Fair is the sunshine, 
 Fairer still the moonlight, 
 Jesus shines brighter, * 
 
 Jesus shines purer, 
 Than all the angels Heaven can boast." 
 
 " Is this Jerusalem ? Is this Jerusalem ? " 
 And a throng of children pressed about the 
 
 people. Denys, who had followed his father, 
 
 laughed aloud in derision. 
 
 " 'Tis Marseilles ! " he called shrilly, but his 
 
MARSEILLES. 107 
 
 father silenced him, for Stephen, beautiful 
 in a suit of rare blue velvet, sprang from his 
 chariot, and addressed the leader of the men 
 from Marseilles. 
 
 " Messire," he said, " we seek Jerusalem, and 
 the tomb of our Lord. We ask to remain in 
 Marseilles for the night. To-morrow, the sea 
 shall dry and we shall go forward to the Holy 
 Land." 
 
 The merchants and citizens looked at each 
 other in amazement. 
 
 What manner of talk was this ? 
 
 But Stephen insisted. 
 
 He described his vision and told of the letter 
 to the king. 
 
 " Wait, then," said the citizen. " We will 
 inform the authorities." 
 
 Soon they returned and led Stephen into the 
 city. The army waited without. Stephen 
 repeated his story, insisting that God was to 
 dry the sea, that a way to Jerusalem would 
 be made. 
 
 The people of Marseilles refused to surren- 
 der their doubts about the sea, but after some 
 
108 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 consultation they decided that it would be of 
 advantage, and do no political harm, to admit 
 the crusaders, since many of them were pro- 
 vided with money for their entertainment. 
 Certainly, it would have taken stony hearts 
 to have refused travel-worn children who be- 
 lieved that God had sent them, food and rest ; 
 so, after some hours, wait, the gates were 
 opened, the army entered, and the crusaders 
 sought shelter for the night. 
 
 Many had kinsmen to whose houses they at 
 once repaired. Others found shelter in the 
 inns. The convents and monasteries protected 
 many, but there were others, and they were 
 not a few, who were without food or money, 
 and they, in consequence, must remain in the 
 streets. " What matters it ? " they asked cheer- 
 fully. " To-morrow, there will be no more 
 sea." 
 
 Brother Sylvestre shook his head. 
 
 "Poor little children," he said, "little wan- 
 dering lambs, astray from their shepherd." 
 
 He was making his way to a monastery for 
 the night when he came face to face with Alise 
 
MARSEILLES. 109 
 
 and Pierre. They looked frightened, and the 
 girl was clinging to the boy. 
 
 Then Pierre explained that nowhere could 
 they discover Lady Bertrade. They had been 
 wandering about the strange city, and they were 
 footsore and very weary, and tears were near 
 the surface. 
 
 They had missed her beyond the hills, but 
 had thought her with the children in the rear. 
 
 Brother Sylvestre remembered that she had 
 told him that she and Alise were to stay in 
 Marseilles at the house of a kinsman, one 
 Eaymond d'^vitet. 
 
 Thither he took the children, but the house 
 was barred, and an old servitor informed the 
 three that his master was away upon a journey ; 
 no Lady Bertrade had been there, so they 
 searched the streets until the setting of the sun. 
 
 And then. Brother Sylvestre, telling the 
 children that surely the morning would bring 
 her, took them with him to his monastery. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE WAY, 
 
 "What was the matter ? 
 
 Along the beach, like gulls resting before a 
 flight, were lines of children. The sun rose 
 higher and higher and the waves beat still on 
 the sand. The breeze blew in salt and fresh, 
 and the sky arched blue above the Avater. 
 
 ""Wait," said Stephen, and his voice was 
 strong with faith. " God hath promised. The 
 day is not done yet." 
 
 For hours the children waited. "When the 
 tide went out they were sure the promise was 
 being fulfilled. 
 
 " The sea is drying ! " they cried, and began 
 
 to raise their banners. The people of Marseilles 
 
 felt sick at heart. They knevr the ways of the 
 
 sea, and it hurt them to see the faith of these 
 
 children. "When night came, and the salt waves 
 
 still rose and fell in the harbor, they offered the 
 110 
 
THE WAY. Ill 
 
 army lodging for a second night. Morning 
 again dawned, and the sea went its daily course 
 of flow and ebb. 
 
 Then the children began to doubt. Perhaps 
 it was not God who had promised but Stephen 
 only. 
 
 " We will return to our fathers and our 
 mothers," and thousands turned their backs on 
 the cruel sea and entered Provence ; others, 
 knowing their parents to be hard and unforgiv- 
 ing, and not averse to the use of a cudgel, found 
 homes as servants in Marseilles. The greater 
 and more earnest part of the army waited 
 on, hoping yet that the promise would be ful- 
 filled. 
 
 " Even if ye have faith as big as a grain of 
 mustard seed," said Stephen, and he told them 
 of those of old whose faith had made them 
 whole. Homesick, yet confident, still they 
 waited, and the sea beat on. 
 
 Alise could think of nothing but her mother. 
 
 " My little daughter," said Brother Sylvestre, 
 " doubtless the sickness or trouble of some child 
 detaineth her. I will send a messenger back 
 
112 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 over our road thither, and, perchance, he shall 
 discover the cause of her delay." 
 
 " Fret not, demoiselle," said Pierre. " Surely 
 she will come." It was pretty to see his care 
 of Alise. His ways were very thoughtful, and 
 a serious look was growing on his frank little 
 face. 
 
 On the evening of the second day Pierre 
 made a resolution. Brother Sylvestre had 
 talked much with him, and his mind had been 
 at work wondering if, after all, crusading was 
 the best way of serving God. 
 
 "Demoiselle Alise," he said next morning, 
 and, as he threw back his curls, he looked like 
 a miniature copy of the Count Eaoul, — " If thy 
 mother comes not soon, we will leave the 
 crusaders, and together return to seek her." 
 
 " Oh, how good thou art, Pierrelo," and 
 Alise slipped her hand in his, " but no, I cannot 
 let thee, for then thou shouldst never see 
 Jerusalem, and wouldst lose the hope of thy 
 crown, and of finding thy father." 
 
 " Brother Sylvestre says that love is our 
 crown, and that we must care for each other, 
 
THE WAY. 113 
 
 and bear each other's burdens. That is true 
 crusading. And I promised him that I would 
 win my spurs as a true knight of the cross. I 
 shall remain with thee, demoiselle, and together 
 we will seek thy mother ! " 
 
 "Wandering about the streets they were ac- 
 costed by a woman. She was large and coarse- 
 looking, with big lips, and a fat chin which 
 wrinkled itself double when she smiled. On 
 her breast was the cross of red so the children 
 believed her when she told Alise that she was 
 seeking her to deliver a message from the Lady 
 Bertrade. 
 
 " Thou art to sleep sound this night, my little 
 lady, for my news is good. Thy mother 
 stoppeth at the house of my cousin, whither 
 she went with a suffering child. The messenger 
 followed thee at once, but nowhere couldst thou 
 be found. Thy mother, moreover, would have 
 thee know that she will be with thee before 
 the drying of the sea. Fret not, but stay 
 quietly in Marseilles until her coming." 
 
 Full of joy, the two little crusaders with 
 
 lightened hearts hastened to the monastery. 
 8 
 
114 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 To their disappointment Brother Sylvestre did 
 not look relieved. In fact, his face appeared 
 even more troubled. 
 
 He made the children describe the woman. 
 
 Then he shook his head. 
 
 " I like not the message," he said and warned 
 the children to avoid her. 
 
 That evening the little crusaders began to 
 revile Stephen. 
 
 " Where are thy visions now ? " cried the 
 very ones who had flattered him. 
 
 "When he attempted to restore order they 
 scorned him. 
 
 Poor children, they were tired of looking at 
 that sea which still beat on and on, not a wave 
 drier than the day before. 
 
 " Who art thou that thou shouldst command 
 us ? " And they scofiPed and turned away from 
 Stephen. Deserted by his high-born friends, 
 puzzled that the promise was not fulfilled, his 
 vanity dropped from him as a garment. His 
 eyes grew wistful, and his beauty seemed to 
 droop as doth that of a flower when water 
 f aileth it. 
 
THE WAY. 115 
 
 The thirty thousand children dwindled away 
 to five or six thousand little believers who 
 still hoped on. The people of Marseilles be- 
 gan to murmur at the necessity of feeding 
 such numbers of children, and, repenting of 
 their promises, made scant effort to procure 
 food. 
 
 Each day affairs grew worse. The sea beat 
 on, and the anxious little eyes watching it grew 
 misty with disappointment. 
 
 Alise and Pierre, growing weary of the wait 
 on the beach where the sun sent dazzling rays 
 in their eyes, wandered about the city, going 
 in and out the narrow streets where the roofs 
 of the houses overhung the windows. 
 
 Sometimes, a boy or girl would lean over 
 the curved railing of some front window gallery 
 and beg for a history of the journey to Mar- 
 seilles. Then the two would pause, and Alise 
 would tell of Stephen and the vision and the 
 march to Marseilles. Sometimes, a kind-faced 
 woman, in every-day kirtle and coif, would come 
 hurriedly from a house and stop them with a 
 cake of oat and bran. 
 
116 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " You pretty dears," she would say, and draw 
 Alise close to her and give her a kiss. 
 
 Never, since the King of England had paused 
 in Marseilles on his way to the Holy Land, had 
 there been so many strangers in the city. 
 
 The streets were so narrow and so full of 
 people that Alise and Pierre often found them- 
 selves pressed close against window or wall. 
 
 Sometimes a priest would pause and give 
 them his blessing. 
 
 To see Alise was to feel kindly. 
 
 Even the gamins of Marseilles checked their 
 tongues in her hearing. 
 
 The cathedral was so grand that the two 
 children paused before it. A kind-faced priest, 
 noticing their interest, told them that once, long 
 before, on that spot had stood a temple to 
 a heathen goddess named Diana, and of how, 
 even before that, an altar to Baal had offered 
 its oblation on the identical spot where at that 
 moment Christian priests were celebrating mass. 
 
 " Enter, little crusaders, enter," he said, and 
 led the way. 
 
 The children stared in wonder, so splendid 
 
THE WAY. IIY 
 
 was the sight which burst on their country 
 eyes. 
 
 The mighty bishop of Marseilles, in gorgeous 
 vestments, was celebrating mass, and on the 
 stone floor knelt innumerable people. Down 
 sank the children, and hand in hand they 
 prayed : Pierre, that he might become a true 
 knight of the Cross, Alise, that the good God 
 would send her mother as quickly as possible, 
 and above them floated the "Holy, holy, 
 holy !" of the Sanctus, and their hearts cried 
 their " Amen " when the Agnus Dei rose and 
 fell in solemn imploring notes. 
 
 They both forgot Jerusalem, and the cruel 
 sea, and knelt on, one with her curls rippling 
 out over the shoulders of her gray dress from 
 under her close cap, the other with head bowed 
 low, his cap in one hand, his eyes on the stones. 
 
 'Twas a pretty sight, and yet, when a 
 woman kneeling near by saw the red crosses 
 on their breasts she caught her own little one 
 closer in her arras and thanked God that her 
 children were babies. 
 
 Behind a pillar stood a man and a woman 
 
118 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 The latter was large and coarse looking, and 
 her chin doubled when she talked. 
 
 "There is the child, now," she whispered, 
 and plucked the man hard at the sleeve. 
 
 He shook her off crossly, and whispered a 
 few quick words. 
 
 "In the morning," answered the woman. 
 " Is she not a rare one, and would she not please 
 even the Old Man of the Mountain himself ? " 
 
 The next morning the little crusaders were 
 relieved from their suspense. 
 
 The sea did not dry up, but the way was 
 made. 
 
 Two merchants of Marseilles, moved, they 
 said, by the faith of the children, came forward 
 with an offer to convey them across the sea in 
 seven small ships. 
 
 " God hath heard our prayer ! " " God hath 
 heard our prayer ! " A cry of joy arose from 
 the harbor. Stephen, his beauty freshened by 
 joy and hope, pointed to seven small ships 
 riding at anchor on the shining blue waves. 
 
 All was haste and confusion. Pierre and 
 Alise hastened to the sea. 
 
THE WAY. 119 
 
 Now would the Lady Bertrade appear. Of 
 that they were certain. 
 
 Suddenly Pierre felt a pluck at his tunic. 
 Turning, he discovered a boy of about his own 
 age, wearing the cross — a queer-faced urchin 
 who knotted up his features when he talked. 
 
 " Art Pierre of Cloyes « " he asked. " Then 
 would Stephen speak with thee — alone," he 
 added seeing that Alise was preparing to ac- 
 company him. 
 
 " I will await thee here, Pierrelo," she said, 
 and took a seat on some stones. 
 
 In vain did Pierre seek Stephen. 
 
 " The prophet is already on shipboard," said 
 a friar with a strange wild face. 
 
 When Pierre returned to the stones Alise 
 was gone. There were fresh footprints in the 
 sand, among them those of a man, but they 
 were soon crossed by others and gave no clew. 
 
 "I will watch the children," he thought, 
 " and, as they embark, I shall find her." For 
 he thought that it was probable that she had 
 gone in pursuit of him or her mother. 
 
 When he failed to find her, he sought Brother 
 
120 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 Sylvestre. The good brother hastily explained 
 that he must leave on one of the ships. His 
 vow was of obedience and the order was for 
 him to seek Italy at once. 
 
 " I have sent for my brother in the flesh," 
 he said. " He sojourneth in a castle near by 
 and he will come and help thee. Wait, my 
 boy, at the monastery, until he comes, and God 
 bless thee for a true little soldier of the cross. 
 Thou art giving up thy desires to see Jeru- 
 salem to succor thy friends, and God will never 
 desert thee." 
 
 Then, though he was a friar, he stooped and 
 swept back the curls from Pierre's brow and 
 kissed him. 
 
 " I would have loved thee for mine own son, 
 child," he said, and blessed him, remembering 
 his office. 
 
CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE SHIPS. 
 
 "While Pierre had been, seeking Alise, the 
 crusaders had been making ready to depart. 
 
 The whole shore was alive with joyous chil- 
 dren. Banners were flying, crosses were up- 
 lifted, voices were raised in song. 
 
 Hugo Ferreus and William Porous, the mer- 
 chants who were to furnish the ships, were 
 close at hand, and out poured the people of 
 Marseilles, women in working kirtles, ladies in 
 wimples and couvre-chef s, in rich tunics and bro- 
 caded mantles, portly merchants with peaked 
 beards and pointed caps, shipbuilders and ship- 
 owners, monks, friars, an abbess, priests, beg- 
 gars, gamins, even the mighty bishop in splen- 
 did dalmatic and mitre. 
 
 Could the old houses of Marseilles have 
 
 spoken, the little crusaders never would have 
 
 sailed. 
 131 
 
122 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " Go back, children, go back," they would 
 have cried. " We saw an army braver than 
 thine sail away. It filled one hundred and 
 fifty great ships. "We saw armor gleam, swords 
 flash, banners wave. "We heard chants, and we 
 saw that army start forth and the Holy Land 
 became not theirs. 
 
 " Go back, little children, go back ! " 
 
 But those old sea-worn houses could not 
 speak, and the children, rejoicing in their for- 
 tune, and fearing no evil, began to embark in 
 confident joy. They were rowed to the ships 
 in skiffs, and Pierre watched each one to see 
 that Alise did not escape him, though in his 
 heart he knew she would never leave without 
 him. At last all were on board and a cheer 
 rang from the shore. 
 
 The captains declared the vessels to be safe, 
 and ready for the voyage. The sailors grasped 
 the ropes, and the anchor chains were un- 
 loosed. 
 
 For a moment all was still. Like the sea- 
 gulls poising over the crests of the waves they 
 love, dripping, rising, the white-sailed vessels 
 
THE SAILING OF THE SHIPS. 123 
 
 rode on the waves and seemed to dance in the 
 sunlight which fell on the thousands of red 
 crosses, and blinding the eyes of the quaintly- 
 dressed crowd on the shore, lit up the gloomy 
 old houses behind them. 
 
 " Veni Creator Spiritus 1 " 
 " Come, Holy Ghost; our souls inspire ! " 
 
 The priests began the hymn to whose music 
 all ships were accustomed to embark in the 
 days of the Church. Five thousand little voices 
 took up the strain ; and then, " In the name of 
 God," the sailors set the sails; the anchors 
 were raised ; and to the sound of the solemn old 
 chant the remnant of the army of the little 
 crusaders moved out the old harbor of Mar- 
 seilles on its way to Jerusalem. 
 
 " Teach me to know the Father, Son, 
 And thee of both to be but One, 
 That, through the ages all along, 
 This may be our unending song." 
 
 And Pierre, shading his eyes from the glare, 
 saw the little fleet pass the great rock of Notre 
 Dame dela Garde whereon stood the chapel of 
 the sailors, and a merchant near by told him 
 
124: THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 that the ships were out the harbor and riding 
 the waves of the sea. 
 
 When the crowd could see and hear no more 
 they returned to their homes. 
 
 Pierre felt very lost and forlorn, alone in a 
 strange city, with the army gone, and with it 
 Stephen, his beautiful Stephen. It hurt him 
 that his old-time friend had gone without a 
 word, and the conflict was strong in him again. 
 
 "Which was the true way to serve God ? 
 
 He had wanted to go in the ships, and a man 
 on the beach had twitted him with being a 
 crusader who had deserted his ranks. 
 
 It was hard, but then Brother Sylvestre had 
 told him that the way of the cross was the way 
 of pain and giving up, and that friendship was 
 dearer than crusading. 
 
 At the monastery he found a grand lord. 
 He was brave and handsome, just the man 
 whom Pierre craved for a father, and he patted 
 the boy on the head. 
 
 " Good-morrow, little knight," he said. " My 
 good brother hath writ me of thy truth to thy 
 lady. No wonder he loveth thee so," he 
 
THE SAILING OP THE SHIPS. 125 
 
 added under his breath. " Thou art a pretty 
 sprig of a lad." 
 
 " And one who looketh strangely like thee," 
 said a brother who had entered the room. 
 
 The stranger shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Flatter me not, good brother," he said with 
 a laugh. " As for kin, if you mean that, my 
 brother and I are alone in the world. Near 
 kin have we none. The resemblance thou seest, 
 — and on my faith, I think thou art right, — is 
 but of chance. But come, my little knight, we 
 must be about our search, for the child is sweet, 
 and the lady fair, and their castle yearneth 
 greatly for their coming." 
 
 The two made their way into the city. 
 
 " Lodgings we must have," said the lord. 
 
 They found accommodations after some 
 search, and there took up their abode. 
 
 The brother of the Franciscan left Pierre 
 presently on some business of his own. "When 
 he returned he found the little crusader fast 
 asleep on the broad window sill, his sturdy little 
 legs dangling against the black wood of the 
 wainscoting. 
 
126 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 His head had fallen upon his doubled-up arm 
 on the sill, and on the face there was a baby look 
 which sent a lump into the throat of the knight, 
 who remembered the thirty thousand such as 
 this who had started forth to Jerusalem. 
 
 Suddenly he started. 
 
 The child's tunic had fallen open at the neck, 
 and lying against the warm whiteness of the 
 little throat was a chain of strange workman- 
 ship. The knight looked at it closer, then 
 studied the boy's face. 
 
 Something in the curve of the mouth made 
 his face grow sad, as if at the awakening of 
 some stifled memory. 
 
 ""Who is this child?" he asked aloud. "'Tis 
 writ in the letter that he is but a peasant of 
 Cloyes, but, on my faith, that boy has better 
 blood than Cloyes in his veins. The child was 
 a boy. Could it " 
 
 Pierre started, moved slowly, then stretched 
 himself, and opened his eyes. "When he saw 
 the knight he sprang lightly to the floor. 
 
 "Pardon, messire," he said, and hastily 
 brought from a cupboard a cake of oats and 
 
THE SAILING OF THE SHffS. 127 
 
 bran, a pasty of fowl, sweetmeats, and a bottle 
 of wine. Then he waited upon the knight, 
 seeing that he had his fill. 
 
 When the knight had made an end of eating 
 Pierre partook of what was left. When he 
 was satisfied he placed the remnants of the 
 feast in the cupboard. 
 
 " Come hither, boy," commanded the knight. 
 " I would ask thee some questions. How camest 
 thou by that chain ? " 
 
 At that moment there entered the knight's 
 little page. 
 
 He bowed low on one knee, his pretty cap 
 in his hand. 
 
 , " Messire," he said, " a lady seeketh good 
 Brother Sylvestre at the monastery, and they 
 have sent thither for thee." 
 
 In haste the knight bade Pierre to follow 
 him. 
 
 " Who knows ? " he asked. " It may be the 
 Lady Bertrade." And in the excitement the 
 chain was forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO ALISE. 
 
 And Alise ? 
 
 What had become of the little lady of 
 Cloyes after Pierre left her to find Stephen ? 
 
 Sitting there on the rocks, thinking anxiously 
 of her mother, she was startled by a touch on 
 her shoulder. 
 
 Turning, she looked up into the face of the 
 woman who had brought the message which 
 had alarmed Brother Sylvestre. 
 
 "How now, little lady?" she said. "Thy 
 mother awaits thee in the streets of Mar- 
 seilles." 
 
 Alise gave a quick cry of joy. 
 
 Then she paused a moment before she spoke, 
 
 remembering how Brother Sylvestre had 
 
 warned her against this woman. 
 
 " How knowest thou of my mother ? " She 
 128 
 
WHAT HAPPENED TO AUSE. 129 
 
 asked. " But go thou, and bid her seek me here, 
 for Pierrelo will return, and were I gone he 
 would not know where to find me." 
 
 " But no, little lady," and the woman's tones 
 were soft and persuasive, " thy mother bade me 
 bring thee to her. Come." 
 
 Alise hesitated. 
 
 It might be that her mother had sent the 
 woman, but why ? She gave a quick glance at 
 the ugly fat face, and in the narrow eyes she 
 caught a cunning look which frightened her. 
 
 " I believe not that my mother sent thee," 
 she cried with sudden courage but with a 
 tremble in every limb, " and thou hast taken off 
 thy cross. If thou art true, thou wilt wait with 
 me for Pierre." 
 
 " Bah ! but I will not, thou little marmotte," 
 cried the woman. The smile vanished from her 
 face, and in its place came a look terrible to 
 see, so full was it of greed, and malice, and 
 wickedness. 
 
 With her pudgy hand she gave a signal, and 
 Alise felt herself caught from the rear, and be- 
 fore she could think or speak she was being 
 
130 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 borne by a man through the streets of Mar- 
 seilles. 
 
 " Help ! Let me go, let me go ! Pierre ! 
 Pierre ! " 
 
 It was a child's imploring cry, and a merchant 
 stopped before the man and woman. 
 
 " 'Tis our little one who would run upon the 
 crusade," explained the man. " "We seek to 
 lock her up until the ships shall be gone. By 
 the saints, good sir, if you have any, look to 
 your children or you will lose them." 
 
 The explanation was sufficient, and Alise's 
 frantic talk passed unheeded. Were not chil- 
 dren breaking all bonds to join the army ? 
 
 The merchant went his way ; next paused a 
 kind-faced woman. 
 
 "'Tis strange," she said to herself, "the 
 child hath look of neither the man nor the 
 woman." 
 
 But she had no proof that Alise was not 
 their child, so she also went her way. 
 
 In vain did Alise struggle to escape. 
 
 The man held her fast, and he compelled 
 her silence with dreadful threats. 
 
WHAT HAPPENED TO ALI8E. 131 
 
 Presently he paused before a house overlook- 
 ing the harbor. 
 
 The woman knocked three times upon the 
 door. It was opened from within by the boy 
 who had brought the message to Pierre. 
 
 Alise found herself borne down a long hall ; 
 a door was unbarred ; she was given a thrust, 
 and found herself in a high vaulted room full 
 of girls of about her own age. Some were cry- 
 ing, some were sulking, others, sitting listless 
 and idle. 
 
 By the wall in which were two high windows 
 admitting the light, sat a girl of twelve or 
 more. Her face was a rich olive, her hair 
 wavy and dark, and long curling eyelashes 
 swept her cheek. 
 
 "When she saw Alise she came forward, a 
 gentle, pitying smile on her face. 
 
 " I am Isabelle of Brittany," she said, and 
 put her arm about Alise. " Be not frightened.- 
 At least, while thou art here, nothing will hurt 
 thee." 
 
 She drew her away to the place near the 
 wall from whence she had come, and in answer 
 
132 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 to Alise's questions told her that the man and 
 woman were slave-dealers, and that all the 
 children before her were destined to be sold 
 into foreign lands. 
 
 And then a terrible thought turned Alise 
 cold. 
 
 The Old Man of the Mountain ! 
 
 Isabelle shook her head. 
 
 " I know not," she said. And then she told 
 Alise of how every few days children were led 
 from the room never to return. 
 
 All night long the two girls clung to each 
 other. Fright, grief, and terror of the coming 
 morrow drove sleep from their eyes. 
 
 It was a terrible thing. 
 
 "When one is ten, one needs her mother, and, 
 poor little children, they had no hope of again 
 seeing theirs. They had all been kidnapped, 
 some by force, some by false messages, some 
 by tempting promises. 
 
 "It may be," said Isabelle next morning, 
 " that we shall be sold to kind dealers. I have 
 my plan. My father is a rich lord. I shall 
 offer a ransom, and, perchance, the dealer will 
 
■WHAT HAPPENED TO ALISE. 133 
 
 send me to my father. If not " — with a gentle 
 hand she touched the cross on Alise's breast — 
 " He will keep us." 
 
 The words cheered Alise, and hope sprang 
 up in her heart. 
 
 Perhaps her mother 
 
 But, alas, where was her mother ? 
 
 The room was full of misery. 
 
 Isabelle of Brittany alone was calm. Many 
 of the children wept in noisy grief. Some 
 were unresigned and pounded on the door. 
 
 For breakfast the woman brought cakes of 
 oat, honey, milk, and wine. She had no mind 
 to starve the children. Such folly would pre- 
 vent a good sale. Their misery had no effect 
 on her cruel heart. She gave each child her 
 portion, and when a pale-looking child begged 
 for some air in the close room she gave her a 
 cuff. 
 
 Before she left, Alise crept" to her side, all 
 the gentle sweetness which people loved filling 
 her face. 
 
 She took the pudgy hand in hers. 
 
 "Good dame," she said, "if the wicked 
 
134 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 man will have thee sell us, wilt thou not let us 
 go to a kind master ? " 
 
 The woman stared. 
 
 " Oh, good dame," said little Alise, her 
 mouth quivering, and her eyes filling, " I am 
 afeard, I am afeard. I want my mother. 
 Take me to her, please, good dame ! Didst 
 ever want thy mother ? " 
 
 " Thou marmotte ! " screamed the woman. 
 
 In a moment she crept back to Isabelle of 
 Brittany. 
 
 Across her cheek were long red marks. 
 
 " Thou wert not wise," said little Isabelle. 
 " But we all did it. 'Tis no use." 
 
 When the evening came, Isabelle told Alise 
 that it was time for the Angelus. 
 
 The two children knelt on the white earthen 
 floor. 
 
 The other children, seeing them, knelt too. 
 
 "When they had said the Hail Mary, Alise 
 began the Our Father. 
 
 "Pater Noster qui es in coelis," and her 
 little voice was so full of faith and hope that 
 quiet came on the prisoners. 
 
WHAT HAPPENED TO ALISE. 135 
 
 Surely God would keep them. 
 
 As the days passed Alise's gentleness began 
 its work. 
 
 She told the children of the vision and the 
 journey. She smoothed over difficulties and 
 passed from group to group like a little mes- 
 senger of love. But within, her little heart 
 was breaking. 
 
 "Mother, mother!" it beat from morn 
 until night. 
 
 Her beauty began to fade, and each day she 
 felt that she must die from longing. 
 
 "Thou art all love," said Isabelle. "Thy 
 heart, my little Alise, is so tender that 't would 
 be barren soil for aught else." 
 
 There was no chance for escape. Isabelle 
 had satisfied herself of that. A quaint little 
 girl of Provence with a saucy face and ways 
 like a boy, had climbed the window frame to 
 seek out a way of escape by jumping, but she 
 returned with the light gone from her eyes. 
 There were heavy iron bars across the win- 
 dows, and the distance to the ground was too 
 great. 
 
136 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 No, there was nothing to do. Never again 
 would they see their parents. 
 
 One day the woman led five from the room. 
 
 Then a dull despair settled on them all. 
 
 Whose turn would come next ? Foul as the 
 room was with the presence of so many, any- 
 thing was better than the slave dealers. 
 
 One afternoon it came the time for Alise. 
 
 " Come," the woman said, roughly seizing 
 her, " none of that. Come ! " For Alise was 
 clinging in fright to Isabelle. 
 
 She led her into a room wherein she washed 
 her, and made her fine in a dress of blue slashed 
 with white and all over with silver. She made 
 smooth her soft hair and pinched her pale 
 cheeks to a healthful pink. Then she led her 
 into a great room where stood a merchant. 
 
 Alise knew him by his high pointed cap, his 
 peaked beard, and girdle about his waist. 
 
 " Here, good merchant, is the child," and the 
 woman thrust the miserable little lady of Cloyes 
 well under his eyes. " I have been saving her 
 for one Al Hassan of Alexandria, but he 
 cometh not, and the child costeth to keep. If 
 
WHAT HAPPENED TO ALISE. 137 
 
 thou wantest such a one — thou said'st fair hair 
 and eyes of blue ? " 
 
 The merchant nodded. 
 
 He, however, seemed unwilling to be pleased 
 immediately. 
 
 " Have ye no others ? " he asked studying 
 Alise. 
 
 The woman looked cross. 
 
 " The child is a rare one," she said. 
 
 They haggled long. 
 
 At length the bargain was struck. 
 
 " I have not about me so much money," said 
 the merchant. " Bring the child to me at sun- 
 set, and thou shalt have the gold." 
 
 The woman agreeing, the merchant departed. 
 
 That evening Alise. found herself again on 
 the streets of Marseilles. 
 
 Presently they entered an old sea-worn 
 house. 
 
 Within they found the merchant. 
 
 Suddenly Alise felt her heart leap with hope. 
 
 Her new master greeted her with a smile. 
 
 Perhaps he was not a bad man, and he would 
 let her go for a ransom. 
 
138 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 On the table lay the gold. With eager greed 
 the woman gathered it up. She counted it, 
 put it in a wallet, drew the string, and left. 
 
 Then went Alise straight to the merchant. 
 
 " Messire," she began, when to her surprise 
 the peaked beard flew to one corner of the 
 room, the high-crowned hat to another, and 
 before Alise could speak she was fast in the 
 arms of her own Count Eaoul; her mother, 
 her lost mother, was hurrying through the 
 doorway, and behind her was Pierre, her good 
 little Pierre, the crusader of Cloyes. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW PIEEEE FOUND ALISE. 
 
 When Alise had been petted and kissed and 
 fed with dainties, they made her tell her story, 
 and her mother shed tears, and Pierre clenched 
 his fists, and the Count Eaoul promised that 
 the woman should be punished. 
 
 " I have been to the Bishop of Marseilles," 
 he said, " to-morrow, he will visit the house. 
 Yes, my sweet little Alise, thy Isabella shall 
 be rescued. I, myself, will leave money with a 
 servant to take her to Brittany. Grieve no 
 more, little one, thy troubles are ended." 
 
 Then Count Eaoul proceeded to tell Alise 
 the story of how they found her. 
 
 " It was this little knight," he said, and he 
 drew forward Pierre. 
 
 To begin with, Alise must understand that 
 
 Brother Sylvestre and her own Sieur Eaoul 
 
 139 
 
140 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 were brothers, and of how, being under the 
 vow of obedience, the Franciscan — as after- 
 wards the followers of him of Assisi came to be 
 called — had despatched a messenger for his 
 brother, who hastened to Marseilles to discover 
 that the lost child and lady were his own 
 friends of Cloyes. 
 
 Then next must Alise hear of how Lady 
 Bertrade had been trapped to the house by the 
 road only to find herself a prisoner. To save 
 herself from the slave-dealers she had oflPered a 
 ransom of rich jewels sewed in her dress. 
 Hastening to Marseilles, she had discovered 
 through the old servitor at her kinsman's house 
 that little Pierre was at the monastery. Seek- 
 ing him, she had found the good Eaoul. 
 
 Alise crept closer to her mother and held 
 her hand fast in hers while the Count talked 
 on. 
 
 He told of the mother's grief at the loss of 
 Alise, of the slow passage of days, and of 
 Pierre's refusal to give up the search. 
 
 " "We must find her," he had cried. " And, 
 by St. Martin of Tours, we will." 
 
HOW PIERRE FOUND ALISE. 141 
 
 One morning, by chance, Pierre walked out 
 from Marseilles. It was hot and the dust 
 followed close at his heels. By and by he 
 came upon a group of children resting under a 
 tree. They were sullen and frightened-looking 
 and none glanced up at his approach. 
 
 With them was an evil-looking man. By a 
 soar across his cheek, Pierre knew him for one 
 whom he had seen in the cathedral at Marseilles. 
 
 Suddenly Pierre's heart gave a leap. Com- 
 ing from behind the tree was the boy who had 
 brought him the message from Stephen. His 
 quick mind put two and two together. 
 
 The man was a slave-dealer. 
 
 The boy was his assistant. 
 
 Doubtless, during his absence, they had 
 kidnapped Alise. 
 
 Pierre hastily concealed himself behind a 
 tree and watched the group. To his disap- 
 pointment they turned their faces westward 
 and marched from Marseilles. After a little 
 thought Pierre concluded not to follow them. 
 He reasoned that they were on their way to 
 deliver the children to some dealer. Doubtless, 
 
142 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 the man and boy would return alone, and so 
 he must watch and follow them. 
 
 Pierre was wild with hope, and refused to 
 listen when the Sieur Kaoul expressed a fear 
 that Alise might have been taken from Mar- 
 seilles in the beginning. He haunted the road, 
 hiding himself in the lush grass of the meadows, 
 and watched the daily processions of merchants, 
 priests, pilgrims, women, and children. One 
 day a woman paused at the tree under whose 
 shade the children had rested. She was large 
 and coarse-looking and she wore a dress of 
 bright green, and hose of scarlet, and a gay 
 breast-knot of the same shade. There was 
 about her a look familiar to Pierre, and he 
 puzzled his brain until he remembered her as 
 the woman who had brought Alise the message 
 from her mother. 
 
 Full of excitement, Pierre waited. Just as 
 the sun was setting a man in a cassock of deep 
 red approached. The woman gave him a 
 laugh of welcome, and as he turned his face 
 Pierre recognized him by the scar. 
 
 The rest was easy to guess. 
 
HOW PIERRE FOUND ALISE. 143 
 
 The Sieur Eaoul had purchased the dress of 
 a merchant, and seeking the house to which 
 Pierre had tracked the couple, offered a tempt- 
 ing price for just the child he craved. 
 
 " And thou knowest how the plan succeeded," 
 he said, smiling at Alise. 
 
 There was indeed much talking to be done, 
 and next day Alise heard of the sailing of the 
 army. 
 
 " And we shall never see the Holy Land," 
 she said in sadness. 
 
 But Pierre was not so sorry. 
 
 " I should like to see my mother," he said. 
 
 The next day they left Marseilles, but not 
 until Alise had seen Isabelle and bade her 
 farewell. She was safe with the bishop who 
 had sent a messenger to her people. 
 
 This time the journey was not on foot. 
 Even Pierre had a palfrey. 
 
 One day the little boy was grieving that at 
 Cloyes they must part. 
 
 " Thou shalt stay in the castle," cried Alise. 
 
 But Pierre shook his head. " I am a peas- 
 ant," he said. 
 
14:4: THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " No, no, but thou art not," exclaimed Alise. 
 "Stephen told me of the finding of thee in 
 the forest. Come, we will to the Sieur Kaoul 
 and thou shalt tell thy story. Perchance he 
 can help thee find thy father." 
 
 "When the Count heard the story his tanned 
 face grew pale. 
 
 He drew Pierre close to his side and kissed 
 his brow. 
 
 " Her little son," he said, and then bit hard 
 on his lower lip. 
 
 " Let me see the chain about thy neck," he 
 said. 
 
 In surprise Pierre unfastened it. 
 
 The knight looked at it long and earnestly. 
 
 " When we reach Cloyes, my little Pierre," 
 he said, " we will talk more of the matter." 
 
 " Dost know my father ? " cried Pierre, and 
 the blood dyed his face even under his curls. 
 
 " Perchance, my boy," answered the Count. 
 " "Wait thou, and I will talk with Jacques and 
 Marie." 
 
 "With this the two children were forced to be 
 content. As they galloped along the road, or 
 
HOW PIERRE FOUND ALISE. 145 
 
 paused to rest in some shady spot, they talked 
 a vast amount about the whole affair, and 
 Alise pictured Pierre's father as some famous 
 knight in shining armor who would dress his 
 son in velvets and teach him to bear arms. 
 
 " And give me a falcon " put in Pierre, whose 
 eye was upon a heron then rising from a stream 
 on the edge of a meadow. 
 
 The journey home was very different from 
 the march to the sea. Count Raoul told them 
 much concerning the ruins in Provence, and 
 Lady Bertrade permitted them to pause and 
 play in the fields and gather poppies, and fill 
 their hands with great bouquets of bouton d'or, 
 or chase butterflies through the green mead- 
 ows. 
 
 Everything was done to make Alise forget 
 her cruel imprisonment, and in time the color 
 returned to her cheeks, and she no longer 
 jumped and started when spoken to. "I am so 
 happy," she would say, kissing her mother on 
 hand or cheek. 
 
 At length they reached Cloyes. 
 
 The Lady Bertrade was for having Pierre 
 
146 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 sojourn in the castle. She felt that never could 
 she do enough for him since he had found her 
 Alise. 
 
 But the boy was determined. " I must go 
 to my mother," he said. 
 
 'Twas evening, and the sun was setting in a 
 rosy glow. 
 
 As Pierre entered the village all was the 
 same, save only that not even a single child 
 was heard in the street. From the meadows 
 came no sound of their voices, and the shep- 
 herds slowly trudging behind their flocks were 
 all grown men. There was not a single boy in 
 Cloyes. 
 
 Pierre passed Andre in his cage. Presently 
 he caught sight of old Jeanne driving home her 
 goat. The Loir still flowed on like a silver 
 cord, and when Pierre paused before his home 
 in the meadow his ears were full of the lowing 
 of milk-laden cattle, of the buzz of bees seeking 
 the straw-bound hives behind the house, of the 
 flow of water over the stones, and he forgot 
 the songs of the crusaders, and the sea no longer 
 sounded in his ears. He was a little boy glad 
 
HOW PIEREE FOUND ALISE. 147 
 
 to be home again after his wanderings, and now 
 he understood his duty, and he knew that God 
 came not in that vision to Stephen, but rather in 
 the homely one of every-day life and love. "We 
 all learn the lesson,sooner or later, when our seas 
 refuse to dry a path between us and our desires, 
 and the cruel waves beat on at our feet as they 
 did at those of the little crusaders, and happy 
 for Pierre was it that he learned it young. 
 
 As old Frangois, driving two oxen,came down 
 the road, Pierre went in, and Marie got him 
 in her arms, and her tears were on his cheek, 
 and her heart flowed over with love for her 
 little lamb who had strayed, and Jacques 
 came in and he wept over him too, and Pierre 
 told them of how he had missed them, and 
 of how wrong he had been to go, and they 
 petted him, and forgot all about his sin in 
 leaving them, for this is the work of love, and 
 it is far nobler and holier than crusading. 
 
CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 PIEEEE S FATHER. 
 
 On the day following Pierre's return came the 
 Sieur Eaoul, and he must needs hear all about 
 the finding of Pierre, and see the jewels, and 
 examine the clothes of the baby. 
 
 "When he had made an end of seeing and 
 learning he told them a story. 
 
 "Long years ago," he began, "there were 
 
 two brothers, and they loved each other very 
 
 tenderly, and naught had ever come between 
 
 them. But one day the elder of the two won 
 
 the day at a tournament, and he laid his trophy 
 
 at the feet of a beautiful slim young girl with 
 
 a white face and golden hair, clad in white and 
 
 gold, one whom the knights called the ' Lily 
 
 of Provence,' since in that land of flowers was 
 
 she born. 
 
 "He loved this lady with all his heart, and he 
 
 felt that never would he love another so well. 
 148 
 
PIERRE'S FATHER. 149 
 
 When he spake of his love to his brother, in 
 return the younger told him of his own love for 
 a beautiful girl whom he had saved in the hunt 
 from the antlers of a great buck which was 
 hard upon her. 
 
 " Each brother rejoiced in the love of the 
 other, and one day the younger journeyed away 
 for his bride. 
 
 " ' She is in Brittany,' he said, ' at the castle 
 of her uncle.' 
 
 " "When he came again to his home he had 
 with him his wife, and it was the fair, Lily of 
 Provence.' 
 
 "Then the elder, with his lips shut hard 
 through love for his brother, went on a journey 
 to Jerusalem, trying in his travels to forget his 
 sorrow. 
 
 " When calmness came, and he returned to 
 share in the joy, he found his brother vanished 
 from the castle. 
 
 " An old retainer whose beard came white to 
 his waist told him the story. Once when his 
 master had been absent from the castle a sum- 
 mons had come for the lady to hasten to her 
 
150 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 uncle in Brittany. The old lord was dying and 
 would see her again before he closed his eyes 
 forever. 
 
 " She started forth with her little babe and a 
 guard of retainers. She visited her uncle, and 
 was on her return when she was torn to pieces 
 by wild beasts in the forest. So it was sup- 
 posed, though no one ever knew the certainty 
 of it, since none of the little party ever was 
 seen again. 
 
 " The husband of the lady was so heart- 
 broken with grief that he was like a man with- 
 out mind. But presently he conquered himself 
 and took the resolution of joining some order in 
 the church. He journeyed away to Italy, and 
 presently made friends with Francis of Assisi, 
 and listening to his plans for an order vowed 
 to poverty, he decided to become one of his 
 followers. 
 
 " So, my little Pierre," said the Sieur Eaoul 
 turning to the boy, " the look in thy face, indeed, 
 told a true story, and now by these jewels and 
 by that chain which a goldsmith made at my 
 order I know that thy mother was the, Lily of 
 
PIERRE'S FATHER. 151 
 
 Provence,'and that thy father is my one dear 
 brother, and that thou art my own little 
 nephew." 
 
 Then he drew Pierre to his arms, and kissed 
 him very tenderly, but as for Pierre his brain 
 was all in a whirl. He had indeed found his 
 father on the crusade, but not a brave knight 
 with waving plumes and flashing armor, but a 
 poor Franciscan brother whose robe was frayed 
 at the edges, and who begged his food from 
 door to door. 
 
 Pierre was not twelve years old, and the 
 disappointment was keen. 
 
 He turned towards Alise to find her eyes full 
 of tears, her lips a-tremble. 
 
 " Oh, Pierrelo ! " she cried, " what a sorrow 
 that Brother Sylvestre should be gone, and not 
 know thee for his son. Sieur Eaoul, my mother 
 used to marvel that thy brother should care so 
 much for a boy not his own, but now 'tis clear." 
 
 Then Pierre's heart was filled with tender- 
 ness, and he remembered the talks with his 
 father, and the story of the birds. " "Wilt tell 
 me more of my father and my mother ? " he 
 
152 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 asked, timidly adding — " ray uncle ? " — with a 
 manly bashfulness which won Sieur Kaoul's 
 heart. 
 
 When Count Eaoul left Cloyes, with him 
 went Pierre. In vain they entreated Jacques 
 and Marie to accompany them. The old man 
 shook his head. " No, messire, no ; old trees 
 root not in new soil. I would miss my sheep, 
 and the river, and long for the hills, and for 
 Frangois and Henri. "We were boys together, 
 messire. There is much to talk over." 
 
 With Marie it was a struggle. 
 
 " I love the lad," she said, and held him close, 
 " but, messire, first with a woman is her man, 
 and it pleaseth mine to abide in Cloyes." 
 
 But there was a longing look in her eyes, and 
 a feeling in her breast which cried out against 
 giving up her boy, but again Love conquered, 
 and she put her wrinkled hand on Jacques' 
 shoulder and let Pierre go. 
 
 " I will come soon again," said the Count, 
 and he gave them gold with which to purchase 
 sheep, and what they would. 
 
 In Count Kaoul's castle Pierre was trained in 
 
PIERRE'S FATHER. 153 
 
 knightly sports, and as the years passed he grew 
 brave and strong. He had not one, but many 
 falcons, and dire was his slaying of the herons. 
 
 Each year he journeyed to see Jacques and 
 Marie, and he never outgrew his love of the 
 little house in the meadow. 
 
 Nor did he forget the lessons his father had 
 taught him of the true way of the cross, and 
 when he kept the vigil of arms in the church 
 on the night before he took his knightly vows, 
 " fasting and praying and lonely watching," he 
 made faith with himself that he was to be ever 
 the knight of Love, suffering long and being 
 kind„" envying not, vaunting not himself, seek- 
 ing not his own, thinking no evil, bearing all 
 things, believing all things, hoping all things, 
 enduring all things." 
 
 And when he had won his spurs he rode away 
 to Cloyes, and asked the Lady Bertrade for the 
 hand of Alise. 
 
 It was his only grief that no news had ever 
 come of his father. Nothing had been heard 
 of the seven ships from the day of their sailing. 
 
 " Thou art my son," said the • Sieur Kaoul, 
 
154 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 who never had married because of his love for 
 the Lily of Provence. 
 
 "When Alise became the wife of Pierre it was 
 agreed that they stay half the year with the 
 Count and the other in the chateau at Cloyes. 
 
 Over the doorway of each castle Alise had 
 placed a cross and its color was red. 
 
 " Our vow is still upon us," she said, " though 
 we need not seek the Holy Land to honor our 
 Lord." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE LITTLE CE0SADEES. 
 
 Eighteen years had passed since Stephen saw 
 his vision on the hills. 
 
 In all that time no news had come of the 
 little army which had sailed on the seven ships. 
 Alise in the long winter evenings was wont to 
 gather her little ones about her knee and tell 
 them of how their father, their grandmother, 
 and their mother had set forth on the march 
 to Jerusalem, and the children wondered and 
 asked if she had not been frightened, and why 
 God had not dried up the sea when He had 
 said faith would conquer. 
 
 " Because," answered Alise, " there was dis- 
 obedience, and the having of our own ways, 
 and the hurting of parents back of it all. We 
 sought glory, and honor, and crowns, and we 
 forgot that Love is the only way, and it could 
 
 not have made children so willing to be brave 
 155 
 
156 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 at the cost of hurting. The vision was not of 
 God, though Stephen believed it." 
 
 It happened one night that all were gathered 
 in the hall of the castle at Oloyes. It was 
 raging without, and the wind howled about the 
 castle as it had on the night when Matilde had 
 told the story of the Old Man of the Mountain. 
 
 There was a trouvere staying over night in 
 the castle, and Pierre, from the dais, com- 
 manded that he sing. 
 
 To the surprise of all, his fingers strayed for 
 a moment about the strings of his lute, and 
 then he sang the crusade of the children. 
 
 Eyes filled with tears as he told of the baby 
 army and its banners, and the homes left des- 
 olate of children. 
 
 " Grief taketh the place of joy in homes, and many- 
 knells are tolled. 
 Mothers, like Rachel, mourn the young whom Death's 
 cold arms enfold." 
 
 As he sang there was a knocking at the castle 
 gate, and when the warder had raised the port- 
 cullis and let down the drawbridge, there 
 entered a stranger in the dress of a priest. 
 
THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 157 
 
 His hair was gray, and his eyes were sad. 
 Water streamed from his clothes, and he looked 
 foot-sore and weary. 
 
 " Welcome, holy man," cried Pierre. 
 
 " Welcome," cried Alise, and stepping from 
 the dais she led the newcomer close to the 
 blaze of the great fire in the hall. 
 
 Then she ordered food and drink, and saw 
 that the stranger was comfortable. 
 
 Presently, when he had satisfied his wants, 
 he drew near the dais, and Pierre wondered 
 that there was something familiar about his 
 look. 
 
 He would not seat himself, but stood erect 
 like one who hath a message. 
 
 " Is there any in this castle," he asked, " who 
 would know the fate of the boys and girls who 
 sought Jerusalem with Stephen of Cloyes. I 
 journey through France bearing news to the 
 mothers and fathers, who for eighteen long 
 years have heard naught of their children." 
 
 " And who art thou ? " cried Pierre all of a 
 tremble. 
 
 But Alise already had reached the stranger. 
 
158 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 " Thou art Brother Sylvestre," she cried, 
 holding out her hands " and I am Alise, and 
 this is Pierre." 
 
 And then she remembered that Pierre had 
 at last met his father. 
 
 It was she who told the story and, in the 
 wonder of it all, the crusade of the children 
 was forgotten. 
 
 But the next day he told them the story of 
 how the ships had sailed safely until a fearful 
 storm arose. It lashed the waves to fury, and 
 two of the ships went to pieces at the foot of 
 a great rock known as that of the Hermit. 
 
 " Well, indeed," he said, and his voice was 
 low and sad, " had the five also struck the rock. 
 Happy, indeed, was the fate of the little cru- 
 saders who went down in the waves to that of 
 those left in the ships." 
 
 Hugo Ferreus and William Porcus, explained 
 Brother Sylvestre, were not true merchants, 
 but slave-dealers who had enticed the children 
 away that they might sell them to the Mos- 
 lems. For this cruel purpose alone had they 
 furnished tbe ships to the crusaders. Then 
 
THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 159 
 
 Brother Sylvestre told of the terror of the 
 children at being sold into slavery, for well 
 they knew the horrors of it. 
 
 Part of the crusaders were carried to Alex- 
 andria, part to Bujeiah, and Brother Sylvestre 
 alone ever again saw France. Some were 
 bought by Maschemuth, the governor of Alex- 
 andria, and cruel indeed was their lot, for he 
 was a hard taskmaster. 
 
 Others were carried to Bagdad into the Holy 
 Land, and on past Jerusalem to the regions 
 about the Tigris. 
 
 And they alone of all that vast army ever 
 saw the Holy City. They had come indeed to 
 Jerusalem, but they were hurried on, and sold 
 into captivity. 
 
 " The shame of it ! " cried Alise, and her 
 face flushed as it had on that long-gone day at 
 Cloyes when she had reproved the children. 
 
 But Brother Sylvestre raised his hand. 
 
 " Daughter," he said, " question not the ways 
 of God." 
 
 And then he told of how he had heard from 
 those who traveled from the East, of how 
 
160 THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. 
 
 eighteen little crusaders had been martyred in 
 Bagdad rather than deny their Lord. As for 
 Brother Sylvestre himself, he had been the 
 slave of Malek Kamel, the Sultan of Egypt^ 
 and his captivity had been easy. His owner 
 at last had liberated him, and he had hastened 
 to France, and now was journeying from 
 hamlet to city, with the news of the children. 
 
 And then he told a wonderful thing. 
 
 He said that the travelers had told him, no 
 matter how much the persecution, how cruel 
 the tortures, not one of the little crusaders had 
 given up his Lord. He thanked God, and when 
 Pierre complained of the hardness of the fate of 
 the little crusaders, he answered slowly : 
 
 " ' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings 
 thou hast ordained strength because of thine 
 enemies, that thou raightest still the Enemy 
 and the Avenger.' Yerily, my children, so 
 long as the world shall last these children and 
 their faithfulness shall show the power of 
 Christ." 
 
 " And Stephen ? " It was Pierre who asked. 
 
 Of the leader of the children. Brother Syl- 
 
THE LITTLE CBUSADEES. 161 
 
 vestre knew nothing. Pierre Jonged to hear of 
 his old playfellow, but never was he to know 
 if Stephen sailed on the ships, was lost on 
 Hermit's Kock, or if he lived in captivity in 
 some heathen land. Like a flash of beau- 
 tiful light the boy had appeared and vanished. 
 Alise loved to believe that he — her beautiful 
 Stephen, Stephen who saw the vision — was one 
 of those whose feet stood within the walls of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 After a little, Brother Sylvestre went his 
 way, promising to return to his new-found 
 children later. 
 
 But his vow forbade his lingering. In pov- 
 erty must he go his way, being of the order of 
 St. Francis. 
 
 As he journeyed, bearing his news, the heart 
 of many a mother gladdened with the hope 
 that her boy or girl might be liberated and 
 return home again. 
 
 But the hope was in vain. Never were the 
 
 feet of even one of these little children to press 
 
 again the soil of France. 
 
 Years afterward, Pierre and Alise learned 
 II 
 
162 THE LITTLE CRUSADEES. 
 
 that the wicked merchants, Ferreus and Porous, 
 in company with three Saracens, were hanged 
 on one gallows for attempting to capture the 
 Emperor Frederick of Germany. 
 
 So ended the Children's Crusade on earth. 
 But, after many long and weary days, their 
 tired feet stand Avithin the walls of Jerusalem — 
 not within the walls of that old city of the He- 
 brew, — but within the walls of the new Jerusa- 
 lem, — those walls made of the twelve stones, 
 — " the first of jasper ; the second, sapphire ; the 
 third, a chalcedony ; the twelfth, an amethyst." 
 
 For, as Brother Sylvestre told Pierre on the 
 road to Marseilles, the way of the Cross is the 
 way of sorrow, and the crown is the reward 
 thereof, and the law of it all, and the end of it 
 all, and the vision, and the command, is Love, 
 and he who would do the will must obey the 
 law, wearing the cross and walking in the way, 
 and the "Word shall never fail him. 
 
 THE END. 
 
iiaaieiiiiiiiija 
 
 EVA'A' MADDEN