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“Then why?” He stood with his feet wide apart, looking down at her.

“It is because you have slept in a manger on a Holy Eve.”

“Aye,” he responded, “but that was a matter of courage, too. There were many strange noises. Also, in the middle of the night came Our Lady herself and said to me: ‘Hereafter thou shalt sing with the voice of an angel.'”

“I should like to see Our Lady,” said the child wistfully.

“Also,” pursued the Fool, “She gave me power over great beasts. See! He fears me, while he loves me.”

And indeed there seemed some curious kinship between the horse and the lad, perhaps because the barrier of keen human mind was not between them.

“Think you,” said the little maid, “if I slept where you did She would appear to me? I would not ask much, only to be made a lad like you, and, perhaps, to sing.”

“But I am a simpleton. Instead of wit I have but a voice and now–a horse.”

“A lad like you,” she persisted, “so that my father would love me and my mother might come back again?”

“Better stay as you are,” said the Fool. “Also, there will be no Holy Eve again for a long time. It comes but once a year. Also it is hard times for men who must either fight or work in the fields. I–” He struck his chest. “I shall do neither. And I shall cut no more wood. I go adventuring.”

Clotilde rose and drew her grey cloak around her.

“I am adventuring, too,” she said. “Only I have no voice and no horse. May I go with you?”

The boy was doubtful. He had that innate love and tenderness that is given to his kind instead of other things. But a child!

“I will take you,” he said at last, rather heavily. “But where, little lady?”

“To my mother at the castle of Black Philip.” And when his face fell–for Philip was not named The Black only for his beard–

“She loves singing. I will ask you to sing before her.”

That decided him. He took her before him on the grey horse and they set off, two valiant adventurers, a troubadour and a lady, without food or sufficient clothing, but with high courage and a song.

And because it was the Truce of God the children went unharmed, encountering no greater adventure than hunger and cold and aching muscles. Robbers sulked in their fastnesses, and their horses pawed the ground. Murder, rapine and pillage slept that Christmas day, under the shelter of the cross.

The Fool, who ached for adventure, rather resented the peace.

“Wait until Monday,” he said from behind her on the horse. “I shall show you great things.”

But the little maid was cold by that time and beginning to be frightened. “Monday you may fight,” she said. “Now I wish you would sing.”

So he sang until his voice cracked in his throat. Because it was Christmas, and because it was freshest in his heart, he sang mostly what he and the blacksmith and the crockery-seller had sung in the castle yard:

“The Light of Light Divine,
True Brightness undefiled,
He bears for us the shame of sin,
A holy, spotless Child.”

They lay that night in a ruined barn with a roof of earth and stones. Clotilde eyed the manger wistfully, but the Holy Eve was past, and the day of miracles would not come for a year.

Toward morning, however, she roused the boy with a touch.

“She may have forgotten me,” she said. “She has been gone since the spring. She may not love me now.”

“She will love you. It is the way of a mother to keep on loving.”

“I am still a girl.”

“You are still her child.”

But seeing that she trembled, he put his ragged cloak about her and talked to comfort her, although his muscles ached for sleep.

He told her a fable of the countryside, of that Abbot who, having duly served his God, died and appeared at the heavenly gates for admission. “A slave of the Lord,” he replied, when asked his name. But he was refused. So he went away and laboured seven years again at good deeds and returned. “A servant of the Lord,” he called himself, and again he was refused. Yet another seven years he laboured and came in all humility to the gate. “A child of the Lord,” said the Abbot, who had gained both wisdom and humility. And the gates opened.