She spoke to the birds, she spoke to the flowers as she would have spoken to human friends if she had any; they were her friends, and she loved them dearly, and she believed with all her heart that they understood her speech. She bent tenderly over one tall plant and touched its golden crest. Diogenes had passed from her thoughts as she stooped and made the flower her confidant. “I wonder when the hunter will come again.”
She turned and stretched out her hands in pretty appeal towards the woodland.
“Dear forest beasts,” she whispered, “forgive me, for I think I shall rejoice at his coming.”
She drew her hand across her forehead, as if she sought to banish distracting thoughts, thoughts that had no place before in the simple order of her life. Then, as one who seeks distraction in the fulfilment of an appointed task, she moved to take the great sword and dedicate herself to its service. Holding it surely and firmly in her strong grasp, she carried it to where the grindstone stood, and carefully laid the edge of the blade to the shoulder of the stone wheel, while she worked the treadle with her foot. As the wheel spun and the sword hissed on the stone, she sang to herself the old, old sword-song that her father had taught her, the song that men who made swords had sung in some form or other from the dawn of war:
“Out of the red earth The sword of sharpness; Blue as the moonlight, Bright as the lightning.”
The song wavered on her lips to the merest thread of music and then faded into silence. Her body was still busy with the sword, but her mind had drifted away from the place where she was to the place where she had been a week ago, to that cool, green hollow in the wood where she had met the tired hunter. He came upon her through the cracking brush, through the parting leaves; he stood before her, the sunlight touching him through the branches, with a smile on his young, fair face; he saluted her with simplicity and grace, and as she gazed at him dim legends of Greek heroes crowded upon her and she could well have believed that she beheld Perseus the dragon-slayer or Theseus the redresser of mortal wrongs. Their speech had been scanty, but it still sounded sweet to her ears. He had said he was thirsty, and she gave him to drink from a familiar spring; he had asked for guidance, and she had shown him the way out of the forest.
That was all, or almost all. He had said he would come again; and, of course, he would come again. In her simple philosophy a given word was given, a promise ever redeemed. There was no trouble in her thought of him; she had been glad to meet this wonderful, joyous being; she would be glad to see him again; in the mean time there was pleasure in meditation. How bright his hair was and how kind his smile! and his eyes were like a mountain lake.
Perpetua was so absorbed by her thoughts and her task that she did not hear the soft sound of quiet footsteps on the grass as a man crested the hill, an old man, tall and gray and sturdy, dressed in a jerkin and leggings of faded scarlet leather, who stood upon the open space, silently watching her.
Once again the clear voice of Perpetua floated into the air:
“Arising, falling, The sword of sharpness, Weapon of Godhead, Baffles the Devil.”