A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM The village schoolhouse was packed to the door.

Over the crowded forms there fell a murky light from the smoky swinging lamp that left dark unexplored depths in the corners of the room.

On the walls hung dilapidated maps at angles suggesting the interior of a ship's cabin during a storm, or a party of revellers, returning homeward, after the night before, gravely hilarious.

Behind the platform a blackboard, cracked into irregular spaces, preserved the mental processes of the pupils during their working hours, and in sharp contrast to these the terribly depressing perfection of the teacher's exemplar in penmanship, which reminded the self-complacent slacker that "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." It was an evangelistic meeting.

Behind the table, his face illumined by the lamp thereon, stood a man turning over the leaves of a hymn book.
His aspect suggested a soul, gentle, mild and somewhat abstracted from its material environment.