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Entered as Second Class Matter at the Post Office at Chicago, III., Under the Act of March .?. 1S79.
Volume V
DECEMBER 22, 1917
Number 26
The Stranger
By MARTIN J. QUIGLEY
FOR days before the Eve of Christmas a Solemn Figure had dogged the army of invasion without challenging special notice. Among the French peasantry there -were noncombatants of patriarchal mien wandering about unmolested at times, and it might have been confounded with one of them. At first glance there -was nothing to distinguish it from one of these, but looked at more attentively one divined behind the mist and veil the presence of a strange majesty.
The face nobly moulded was lighter in hue than that of a peasant exposed to the intensity of the summer sun. About the brow and head there was a peculiar tenderness and majesty that seemed to bring to mind the idea of centuries of adoration. But above all, the eyes of this strange man drew attention of the onlooker — eyes of dark and ethereal brilliancy tilled now with the light of great pity and sorrow.
Who -was this Unknown, zvhence came He, and what business had He there amid slaughter, rapine, desolation and death? He seemed strizing to come near the Hun warriors in the thickest of the carnage but was stopped short, finding them all-intent upon their hellish trade and wholly oblivious of His Presence.
They had enough to do -without heeding Him, and one might feel that it -was only their blind, unseeing rage that exempted Him from the fate of so many. It -was plain they did not see Him —or would not see Him— else the spectacle of this Unknown figure sorrowing and wringing His hands over their bloody deeds would have brought them to their knees in supplication to Heaven for an armistice.
AT night He -wandered about the beleaguered village, going from one outpost to another, hecdless of the sentinel's call. Often abroad in No Man's Land He was fired at, mistaken for a prowling spy, and the soldier running forward to glory in his bloody marksmanship foundnothing. Soon a rumor spread of a mysterious figure moving majestically in the rain of death between the trenches. Many soldiers declared that during the dark -watches of the night they heard It moaning and wailing and lamenting in a strange unearthly tongue— a tongue none on that side of the battle front could understand.
In intervals between the hell-sent hail of shot and shell a comrade, stout of heart, -whispered to a -weaker brother that it -was an omen of victory. There -were others -who averred that the strange Visitant foreshado-wed the coming of disaster; and indeed disaster did come to the trenches of the invader, seizing with spectral hands and dragging dcrwn to death many -who fain -would greet the enemy as "Brother" if the man called Kaiser -would say but the -word.
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