“Heard me and made me glad indeed,” said the mother; “but scarcely given me what I could have dared to ask or to wish, though with all my soul I will it if He wills it.”
“About our Marius, mother?”
The mother bowed in acquiescence, and said in a low voice—
“I think, dearest, we may have to let him go.”
“To the frontiers, among the barbarians, the Huns! But they say all the other barbarians were angels compared with these, who seem half wild beast and half witch.”
“There are no half beasts in our Christian creed,” said the mother; “only creatures once ‘very good,’ made in the image of God, now fallen angels and fallen men, and none fallen below the depths of the Redeeming Cross. The roots of the Tree of Life are deeper than the roots of any poison tree.”
“But, mother, Marius would be going not to redeem the Huns, but to hunt and slay them; not as a shepherd or a priest, but as a soldier, would he not?”
“That is true,” Damaris replied; “but even the shepherd has sometimes to slay the lion and the bear.”
“But it is our own Marius,” exclaimed Lucia, passionately escaping from allegory; “he will go to lead our Roman soldiers, some of them, father says, so feebly armed, so effeminate, that they have thrown off the old armour, the heavy helmets and shields, preferring to run the risk on the battle-field rather than to bear the weight on the march, and therefore when the battle comes, often taking refuge in cowardly flight. And against him will be those fierce, nimble Huns, or the tall athletic Goths, who don’t mind being killed, father says, if they can only kill enough of the enemy first. And the enemy will be our Marius, who will never run away, and will be among those ill-armed cowards who will take to flight and let him stay and die!”