tossing. It looked to Findelkind like a group of knights,--those
knights who had helped and defended his namesake with their steel
and their gold in the old days of the Arlberg quest. His heart
gave a great leap, and he jumped on the dust for joy, and he ran
forward and fell on his knees and waved his cap like a little mad
thing, and cried out

"Oh, dear knights! oh, great soldiers! help me! Fight for me,
for the love of the saints! I have come all the way from
Martinswand, and I am Findelkind, and I am trying to serve St.
Christopher like Findelkind of Arlberg."

But his little swaying body and pleading hands and shouting
voice and blowing curls frightened the horses; one of them
swerved and very nearly settled the woes of Findelkind for ever
and aye by a kick. The soldier who rode the horse reined him in
with difficulty. He was at the head of the little staff, being
indeed no less or more than the general commanding the garrison,
which in this city is some fifteen thousand strong. An orderly
sprang from his saddle and seized the child, and shook him, and
swore at him. Findelkind was frightened; but he shut his eyes and
set his teeth, and said to himself that the martyrs must have had
very much worse than these things to suffer in their pilgrimage.
He had fancied these riders were knights, such knights as the
priest had shown him the likeness of in old picture-books, whose
mission it had been to ride through the world succouring the weak
and weary, and always defending the right.

"What are your swords for, if you are not knights?" he cried,
desperately struggling in his captor's grip, and seeing through