So Winfried took the book and closed it, clasping the boy's hand
with his own.

"Let us first dismiss the others to their vespers," said he, "lest
they should be weary."

A sign from the abbess; a chanted benediction; a murmuring of
sweet voices and a soft rustling of many feet over the rushes on
the floor; the gentle tide of noise flowed out through the doors
and ebbed away down the corridors; the three at the head of the
table were left alone in the darkening room.

Then Winfried began to translate the parable of the soldier into
the realities of life.

At every turn he knew how to flash a new light into the picture
out of his own experience. He spoke of the combat with self, and
of the wrestling with dark spirits in solitude. He spoke of the
demons that men had worshipped for centuries in the wilderness,
and whose malice they invoked against the stranger who ventured
into the gloomy forest. Gods, they called them, and told strange
tales of their dwelling among the impenetrable branches of the
oldest trees and in the caverns of the shaggy hills; of their
riding on the wind-horses and hurling spears of lightning against
their foes. Gods they were not, but foul spirits of the air,
rulers of the darkness. Was there not glory and honour in fighting
with them, in daring their anger under the shield of faith, in
putting them to flight with the sword of truth? What better
adventure could a brave man ask than to go forth against them, and
wrestle with them, and conquer them?