In the Border Country

by Josephine Daskam Bacon

"But we think—in my city—that these unhappy ones, the poor, the sick, the ignorant, gain more from the few who should do all," she argued.

"Maybe. But you gain the less who fail to do them," said the Countess.

"Child," said the woman, sternly, "the poor were not created for our discipline."

"I do not know how you know that," said the Countess.

At this the woman's eyes grew wide, and she stared at the embroidery frames and the stags' heads and the arras, and all the quiet maidens in their looped skirts, with eyes that saw them not. At last she sighed and rose from her carved chair humbly.

"Thank God, I am not too old to learn!" she said; "I see I have not earned my rest, while so many of the world lack theirs. Perhaps in heaven, if I win there, I may take it. But it is hard. Once in my life, yes, and twice, I was all for urging on and doing, and two women, in strange places, one very old and one of middle age, taught me sharply that it might not be, and bridled and haltered my young strength. Now that I am content to be nothing, you, a young woman, urge me on. Are you the third, then? How many more must there be?"

Then the Countess rose and threw herself on her knees before her and kissed her trembling hand.

"No more, no more, O mother of six!" she cried, sobbing, "and be sure that only the fine gold must needs be so harried by the great Smithy! But it could not be that such as thou shouldst end at a sunset window. Rather die fighting as did my good lord, and leave the quiet for them that mourn!"

"I will do so," said the woman, "but how have you learned such wisdom, being so young?"

"When my lord died," said the Countess, "I was as one mad, and set myself toward the convent, to end there, praying for him. But a very holy hermit that lives beneath Merlin Oak, in the very midst and heart of the Dunes, to whom I brought a relic from Jerusalem as a pious offering, set me right and told me I was not made for a religious. 'It may be, my daughter, that in too much thought on your religion you will lose it,' he said, 'and end in tears and kissings of the Feet, for which not many of the saints have power, for long. Make of thy deep heart a crystal spring, with continual bubbling, which is despised of the wise fools of this world, but ordained forever from the Throne.'"