‘A hard, uncharitable doctrine,’ began the tutor, realising that he must discuss the Parish before he could introduce Bindy’s case effectively. ‘You mean, of course, that there’s no material to work on?’ ‘No energy to direct,’ was the emphatic reply. ‘My sheep here are--real sheep; mere negative, drink-sodden loafers without desire. Hospital cases! I could work with tigers and wild beasts, but who ever trained a slug?’ ‘Your proper place is on the heights,’ suggested Hendricks, interrupting at a venture. ‘There’s scope enough up there, or used to be. Have they died out, those wild men of the mountains?’ And hit by chance the target in the bull’s-eye. The old man’s face turned younger as he answered quickly. ‘Men like that,’ he exclaimed, ‘do not die off. They breed and multiply.’ He leaned forward across the table, his manner eager, fervent, almost impetuous with suppressed desire for action. ‘There’s evil thinking up there,’ he said suggestively, ‘but, by heaven, it’s alive; it’s positive, ambitious, constructive. With violent feeling and strong desire to work on, there’s hope of some result. Upon vehement impulses like that, pagan or anything else, a man can work with a will. Those are the tigers; down here I have the slugs!’ He shrugged his shoulders and leaned back into his chair. Hendricks watched him, thinking of the stories told about his missionary days among savage and barbarian tribes. ‘Born of the vital landscape, I suppose?’ he asked. ‘Wind and frost and blazing sun. Their wild energy, I mean, is due to----’ A gesture from the old man stopped him. ‘You know who started them upon their wild performances,’ he said gravely in a lower voice; ‘you know how that ambitious renegade priest from the Valais chose them for his nucleus, then died before he could lead them out, trained and competent, upon his strange campaign? You heard the story when you were with me as a boy----?’ ‘I remember Marston,’ put in the other, uncommonly interested, ‘Marston--the boy who----’ He stopped because he hardly knew how to continue. There was a minute’s silence. But it was not an empty silence, though no word broke it. Leysin’s face was a study. ‘Ah, Marston, yes,’ he said slowly, without looking up; ‘you remember him. But that is at my door, too, I suppose. His father was ignorant and obstinate; I might have saved him otherwise.’ He seemed talking to himself rather than to his listener. Pain showed in the lines about the rugged mouth. ‘There was no one, you see, who knew how to direct the great life that woke in the lad. He took it back with him, and turned it loose into all manner of useless enterprises, and the doctors mistook his abrupt and fierce ambitions for--for the hysteria which they called the vestibule of lunacy.... Yet small characters may have big ideas.... They didn’t understand, of course.... It was sad, sad, sad.’ He hid his face in his hands a moment.