shook his fist in the priest's face, saying in a loud voice:

"Wretched priest, have you come to this place to beguile my wife and my little ones? Do you not know that I am an outlaw, cast out from the law, and that I cannot leave this forest?"

The priest felt no fear, but looked at the Robber and said to him gently: "I am striving with all my might to obtain for you a decree of pardon from Bishop Absalon."

At that the two Robbers plunged into laughter, for they knew only too well what kind of mercy a forest outlaw could expect from the said Bishop. The man said: "Listen, priest. If you get me a

pardon from the Bishop, I swear to you I will give up robbing!"

The monk was disgusted at their bearing toward Father Hans, and ashamed that they should laugh in his face in this fashion. Yet in all else he was some-what content, for never before had he seen the priest sit with such calm and gentle-ness as he sat among this com-pany of robbers.

Suddenly the Robber Mother rose from her place and said: "Father, our talk has made us forget to watch the forest. From here I can hear the pealing of the feast bells."

They all sprang to their feet. The darkness was still pitch-black and the air bitterly cold, and they saw nothing; but they heard a far-off ringing, the ringing of bells, borne to them on a softly blowing south wind.

Father Hans wondered: "How can this slumbering forest, sunk in its sleep, be wakened by the pealing of bells?"

He stood in the midst of the black winter darkness, and it seemed to him far-fetched that a summer

garden should burst forth in the heart of the forest, as he had believed before.

But only a few seconds passed before a wave of light flooded the forest, sweeping over it in a flash and then returning — returning like a luminous mist swimming among the black-mantled trees.

And behold, the night was steeped in a faint glow like the first rays of daybreak.

Then Father Hans noticed that the snow had melted from the ground, like a carpet that had lain spread upon it and was rolled away. He noticed too that the earth was beginning to recover its green: the bracken sprang out

of it with fronds hooked like a bishop's staff, while the stalks of the simsima on the hills and the sprigs of myrtle in the bogs put on a new green.

And the henna shrubs spread and shot up, and the buds of the spring flowers came forth full, mantled in colors.

Father Hans's heart beat! It beat in quick, hurrying throbs at these first signs of the forest's wakening.

He murmured, his eyes brimming with tears: "Is it granted to me, a perishing old man, to witness this great miracle?"

Suddenly a thin cloud passed over the wood, and the priest thought the darkness would close in once more. But a new surge of light broke free, carrying with it the

whispering of brooks and the murmur of waterfalls. And the trees unfolded their leaves faster than the twinkling of an eye, as though millions of green butter-flies had flown up and settled on the boughs.

Nor was this wakening confined to tree and plant; it took in the birds as well. Here were flocks of great-billed birds hopping from bough to bough, and there flocks of woodpeckers hammering at the bark of the branches till the splinters flew right and left.

And companies of starlings came with wings outspread and settled on the crowns of the silver fir trees; and every time they stirred,

the tips of their red feath-ers glittered, like precious stones in their sparkle.

Then darkness settled for a moment, fol-lowed by the breaking forth of light anew. From the south there blew a mild, warm breeze that scattered over the whole stretch of the meadow all

the fine seeds which the birds and the ships and the winds had carried up from the southern lands. And scarcely had these seeds touched the rich soil before they struck root and sprouted.

Another wave of hot air blew past, and the berries of every kind ripened. The cranes and the wild geese came shrieking their familiar cry, while flocks of robins busied themselves building their nests, and the squirrels fell to playing in the trees after their wonted fashion.