"But, boy, lad, what's your name? However did you learn that there are painters in the world, here in this prison-house of sanctity?" Nathaniel had burrowed into his protector's coat as though hiding from the imminent wrath of God. He now spoke in muffled tones. "Two years ago, when I was but a little child, there came a man to our town, a Frenchman, they said, and his horse fell lame, and he stopped two days at my Uncle Elzaphan's. My Uncle Elzaphan asked him what business did he in the world, and he said he put down on cloth or paper with brushes and colors all the fair and comely things he saw. And he showed a piece of paper with on it painted the row of willows along our brook. I sat in the chimney-corner and no one heeded me. I saw--oh, then I _knew_! I have no paint, but ever since I have made pictures with burnt sticks on birchbark--though my father says that of all the evil ways of evil men none lead down more swift to the chambers of death and the gates of hell than that. Every night I make a vow unto the Lord that I will sin no more; but in the morning the devil whispers in my ear and I rise up and sin again--no man knows this--and I am never glad unless I think I have done well with my pictures, and I hate the meeting-house and--" His voice died away miserably. "Two years ago, was't?" asked the old man. "And the man was French?" "Aye." The old soldier shifted his position, stretched out a stiff knee with a grimace of pain, and pulled the tall lad bodily into his lap like a child. For some time the two were silent, the sun shining down warmly on them through the faint, vaporous green of the tiny leaves. The old horse cropped the young shoots with a contented, ruminative air, once in a while pausing to hang his head drowsily, and bask motionless in the warmth. Then the old man began to speak in a serious tone, quite different from his gentle laughter. "Young Everett, of all the people you have seen, is there one whom you would wish to have even a moment of the tortures of hell?" Nathaniel looked at him horrified. "Why, no!" he cried indignantly. "Then do you think your God less merciful than you?" Nathaniel stared long into the steady eyes. "Oh, do you mean it is not _true_?" He leaned close in an agony of hope. "Sometimes I have thought it _could_ not be true!" The old soldier struck him on the shoulder inspiritingly, his weather-beaten face very grave. "Aye, lad, I mean it is not true. I am an old man and I have learned that they lie who say it is true. There is no hell but in our own hearts when we do evil; and we can escape a way out of that by repenting and doing good. There is no devil but our evil desires, and God gives to every man strength to fight with those. There is only good in your love for the fair things God made and put into the world for us to love. No man but only your own heart can tell you what is wrong and what is right. Only _do not fear_, for all is well."