"And I have an idea, Swallow, that she is inside with four or five baby squirrels, who think the world is lined with fur and that life consists in drawing nutriment from a warm breast. This must be the way of it."
"Step along, my pretty one, and may it happen we shall find the Knight round the next turn. Do you notice how the green trees grow like a mane on the hills?"
Swallow thinks differently. It is her opinion that the dark needle-like pines stand erect in the same way as the fur on a grizzly's back. I know this, else why does she shy violently as we make the turn?
"You are wrong, my pretty one," say I. "These pine-trees are very religious and much too dignified to attack you and me. Besides, the needles of the pines drive devils away, and if you carry a sprig of spruce with you in the woods, no ill-luck will ever come to you. Théophile Trembly, who is a woodsman and a ranger, told me this.
"Do not linger, Sweet-o'-my-Heart; the world is young and you and I may ride forever.
"These are juniper-bushes, any one can see. Maybe if I were to lie under one, like the Tishbite did, an angel might touch me. And maybe I should also find 'a cake baken with coals', and a cruse of water. I would tell you, Swallow, how it tasted in my mouth, for the Tishbite forgot this thing. And I would mention where the angel got the coals. They must have been the 'coals of juniper' of which King David wrote, for these are, to this very day, the best charcoals in all the world. Where the divine visitant found the match to kindle the coals...
"Ah, well! I'll ask the Padre about this, but like as not he'll say, "An irrevelant and irreverent question, M'Dear!" although it is neither one nor the other, for it argues well for humanity that an angel, who is generally portrayed as a rather offish being, should know where to find a match and how to use it. A lot could be said on this very point. It pleasures me not a little that an angel from the skies built a fire out of doors and cooked cakes on it. This surely means that when the angels take recreation they play at being men and that they have a kindly feeling for us. It might be that there are more of them around about than we have any idea, neighbourly-like angel of sap and sinew, who occasionally bear a hand in our work and who loaf around of evenings by the campfire. If an angel can cook on an out-door fire, he must know how to hang a blanket to the windward side, and an angel who knows this is no nidnoddy fellow, I can tell you.
"If you were listening more attentively, Swallow, and if I were not afraid of the Padre finding out, I would push this idea further and say that, when the angel was through with his meal, he would in all likelihood be humanely tired and would fall asleep on a heaped up mattress of fir needles and dried juniper leaves. These, as is their wont, would whisper immemorial secrets to him, so that he might come in time to be a little more tolerant of our failings and to wonder if it were altogether fair that the soul of a man should be damned for his body's needs. He might even think the same about a woman's soul. It cannot fail to vastly affect an angel's opinions when, instead of looking down from the sky, he lies on a bed of leaves and looks up at it. The whole colour and texture of his ideas must be altered. I believe he would come to feel that religious truths should vary to suit the needs of humanity, as those needs change, and that religion should serve men rather than men religion.
"A young god-man said something about this one day in a wheatfield, but he was reproved by his wincing hearers whose descendants are with us to this very day."
This conversation has become too philosophical for Swallow, whose ears are sweetly holden and who shows her wish to change my thought by single footing whenever we come to a level stretch. Doubtless, she hopes to draw my attention to her easy and right pleasant gait. If I owned her we might become great cronies.