When the great gray car stopped, throbbing, at special view-points here
and there, it was Brian who could listen for a lark's message of hope
among the billowing downs, or draw in the tea-rose scent of earth from
some brown field tilled by a woman. It was Father Beckett who saw the
horrors of desolation--desolation more hideous even than on the French
front; because, since the beginning, here had burned the hottest furnace
of war: here had fallen a black, never-ceasing rain of bombardment,
night and day, day and night, year after year.
It was the cherubic Old Contemptible who could tell each detail of
war-history, when the car reached Albert. It was Brian who knew the
ancient legend of the place, and the modern story of the spy, which,
together, double the dramatic interest of the Bending Virgin. In the
eleventh century a shepherd boy discovered, in a miraculous way, a
statue of the Virgin. There was a far-off sound of music at night, when
he was out in search of strayed sheep, and being young he forgot his
errand in curiosity to learn whence came the mysterious chanting,
accompanied by the silver notes of a flute. The boy wandered in the
direction of the delicate sounds, and to his amazement found all the
lost flock grazing round a statue which appeared to have risen from the
earth. On that spot was built the basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebieres,
which became a place of pilgrimage. The Virgin of the Shepherds was
supposed to send her blessings far, far over the countryside, and her
gilded image, with the baby Christ in her arms, was a flaming beacon at
sunrise and sunset.
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