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At midnight, as he returned from visiting the outposts, the soldiers greeted him with a weird illumination: by a common impulse they tore down the straw from their rude shelters and held aloft the burning wisps on long poles, dancing the while in honour of the short gray-coated figure, and shouting, "It is the anniversary of the coronation. Long live the Emperor."
The latter instinctively mounted the stoop on tiptoe, treading gingerly as one who ventures into precincts unknown but long respected; and as Fleetwood pulled the old-fashioned bell, Plank stole a glance over the façade, where wisps of straw trailed from sparrows' nests, undisturbed, wedged between plinth and pillar; where, behind the lace pane-screens, shadowy edges of heavy curtains framed the obscurity; where the paint had blistered and peeled from the iron railings, and the marble pillars of the portico glimmered, scarred by frosts of winters long forgotten.
My long hair, similarly stained and tangled, was all about my shoulders, while wisps of it continually strayed in the way of my vision so that sometimes I was compelled to brush it aside with my hands. For the most part, however, I contented myself with peering through it like a wild animal from a thicket.
They were carting in hay, and when night came on, somewhere about Mount Vernon, I gathered an armful of wisps that had fallen from the loads, and made a bed for myself in a wagon-shed by the roadside. In the middle of the night I was awakened by a loud outcry. A fierce light shone in my face. It was the lamp of a carriage that had been driven into the shed.
Then he steadied himself, and the frown deepened as he surveyed this very changed and elegant godson of his, noted the quiet richness of his apparel, the paste buckles and red heels to his shoes, the sword hilted in mother-o'-pearl and silver, and the carefully dressed hair that he had always seen hanging in wisps about his face. "At least you do not look destitute now," he sneered. "I am not.
But the mendacity, now reverberating in memory, seemed more spurious than it had two weeks earlier when she had articulated it sotto voce within the wisps of her breath.
I got my camera into action and took some excellent scenes, showing what was once a beautiful main road: broken trees flung over it in all directions like so many wisps of straw, and an unimaginable mass of barbed wire entanglements. Then, swinging my camera round, I obtained a panoramic view of the destroyed village.
This served for a foundation and prevented the young flame from drowning itself in the snow it otherwise would melt. The flame he got by touching a match to a small shred of birch-bark that he took from his pocket. This burned even more readily than paper. Placing it on the foundation, he fed the young flame with wisps of dry grass and with the tiniest dry twigs.
"Who in the world are you?" For inside the arbour sat a strange-looking girl of about Patty's own age. She was a tall, thin child, with a pale face, large black eyes, and straight black hair, which hung in wisps about her ears. "I'm Pansy," she said, clasping her hands in front of her, and looking straight into Patty's face. "You're Pansy, are you?" said Patty, looking puzzled.
The curl comes out of my hair as soon as it's in. And it leaves straight wisps sticking out all over." "That's just it. To-morrow I'll show you a wiser and a better plan of curling it." "I wish you would, Patty. There are lots of things I want you to advise me about, if you will."
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