The Red Vineyard

“I’ll give you just three nights in the front line trench before your hair will turn grey,” said a brown haired priest, looking at me with a slightly aggressive air.

I remained quiet.

“You’ll not be very long in the army till you’ll wish yourself out of it again,” was the not very encouraging assertion of a tall, thin priest who suffered intermittently from dyspeptic troubles.

Still I did not speak.

Another priest, whose work was oftener among old tomes than among men, said slowly and, as was his wont, somewhat seriously, that it surprised him very much to note my eagerness to go to war. He did not consider it in keeping with the dignity of the priest to be so belligerently inclined. Did I not recall that I was an ambassador of the meek and lowly Christ—the Prince of Peace?

Had I obeyed the first impulse, I think my reply would have been colored with a little asperity; but as I was weighing my words, a gentle white-haired old priest, stout and with red cheeks, said to me as he smiled kindly; “Ah, Father, you are to be envied. Think of all the good you will be able to do for our poor boys! Think of the souls you will usher up to the gates of heaven!”

He shook his head slowly from side to side two or three times, and the smile on his kind old face gave place to a look of longing as he continued, somewhat regretfully: “Ah, if I were a younger man I’d be with you, Father. All we older men can do now is to pray, and you may rest assured I shall remember you often—you and your men.”

I looked at the old priest gratefully. “Thank you, Father,” I said, and I thought of Moses of old, with arms outstretched.

None of the other priests spoke for a while, and I gazed into the fire of dry hardwood that murmured and purred so comfortably in the large open fire-place, built of small field stones. I was thinking earnestly and when the conversation was again resumed I took no part in it. In fact, I did not follow it at all, for I was wondering, among other things, if my hair would really turn grey after a few nights in the front line trenches. However, I did not worry; for I concluded it would be wiser to wait until I should arrive at the trenches, where I might have the evidence of my senses.

I gave but a passing thought to the words of the good priest who was a little dyspeptic. He had never been in the Army, and where was his reason for assuming that I should not like the life? Of course, I did not mind what the old priest, whose work was so often among old books, had said about my being an ambassador of the Prince of Peace. I felt that this priest had got his ideas a little mixed. Not very long before I had heard him vent his outraged feelings when the French government had called the priests of France to fight for the Colors. He had been horrified. So I surmised that he imagined I had voluntarily offered my services as a combatant. I had not.

The conversation continued, but I heeded it not. I was busy meditating on the words of the saintly old priest with the red cheeks. How well he understood, I thought. And the flames of the fire shot in and out among the wood, purring pleasantly the while.