The Militants / Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World

The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

I took her in my arms and held her.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1907
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN WHO WAS WITH HIS WHOLE HEART A PRIEST AND WITH HIS WHOLE STRENGTH A SOLDIER OF THE CHURCH MILITANT. JACOB SHAW SHIPMAN
The Bishop was walking across the fields to afternoon service. It was a hot July day, and he walked slowly—for there was plenty of time—with his eyes fixed on the far-off, shimmering sea. That minstrel of heat, the locust, hidden somewhere in the shade of burning herbage, pulled a long, clear, vibrating bow across his violin, and the sound fell lazily on the still air—the only sound on earth except a soft crackle under the Bishop's feet. Suddenly the erect, iron-gray head plunged madly forward, and then, with a frantic effort and a parabola or two, recovered itself, while from the tall grass by the side of the path gurgled up a high, soft, ecstatic squeal. The Bishop, his face flushed with the stumble and the heat and a touch of indignation besides, straightened himself with dignity and felt for his hat, while his eyes followed a wriggling cord that lay on the ground, up to a small brown fist. A burnished head, gleaming in the sunshine like the gilded ball on a church steeple, rose suddenly out of the waves of dry grass, and a pink-ginghamed figure, radiant with joy and good-will, confronted him. The Bishop's temper, roughly waked up by the unwilling and unepiscopal war-dance just executed, fell back into its chains.
Did you tie that string across the path?
Yes, The shining head nodded. Too bad you didn't fell 'way down. I'm sorry. But you kicked awf'ly.