Followers of Saint Francis 



you are in to hear in a blood-curdling volley the 

 whole round of their anathemas. To expiate 

 such curse, there is no sufficient penance. To 

 them it is nothing that our neighbors look at us 

 askance, that the market-man will pass us by, 

 that we shall be cut off from provisions and from 

 friendhness. Theirs is the blood of martyrs^, and 

 though for it they starve or are cast out, they 

 must defend the truth that rises in them. There 

 is no finesse to your convinced fanatic. 



It is these attempts at forced conversion that 

 I make it my business to forestall by my own 

 lowly means of guile and subterfuge. For the 

 hen, — if at least the chances are that she will 

 come within my brother's range, I offer half my 

 store of chicken wire and the suggestion that she 

 might lay better for a little freedom. For the 

 geese, I fetch and carry surreptitiously on a warm 

 day imtil I set them guzzling. You might even 

 think that I was one of the devout and not a 

 lover of mere human amity. For the horse, left 

 waiting in the road and likely to gain punish- 

 ment for his willful edging towards the hedge, 

 I idly amble down the path and keep him out of 



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