CHAPTER I.

AT THE CASTLE



In the nursery of a fine old Swiss castle, on the shores of Lake
Leman, stood a small boy of seven, confronted by his white-capped
nurse.

"You are a naughty boy!" she exclaimed. "Do you not know that the
devil is to take away all naughty children?"

The little fellow opened wide his clear, truthful eyes, into which
there crept a deepening look of trouble--trouble rather than fear; big
tears rolled down his pinafore, and when tucked away for the night,
Jean Guillaume De La Fléchère crept out of his cosy cot, sank upon his
knees, and began the first real prayer of his life: "O God, forgive
me!" Nor would he be interrupted until the inward sense of pardon
comforted his sorrowing little heart. Many years later he described
this time as the shedding abroad of the love of God within him.

Colonel De La Fléchère's family mansion commanded as fine a view of
Swiss scenery as could be found in the neighbourhood. "Hill and dale,
vineyards and pastures, stretched right away to the distant Jura
mountains. At a few paces from the château was a terrace overlooking
Lake Leman, with its clear blue waters and its gracefully curved and
richly-wooded bays. On the right hand, at a distance of fifteen miles,