Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/482

 “That also—”

“And this?”

"This also?”

"And this?”

“I have flung this, too, away.”

“Have you anything now about you that you treasure?” “I have nothing.”

“Friends, ties, ambitions?”

“They are all gone.”

Then out of the heart of the storm there came Voices:—

“Blessed be Pain and Torment and every torture of the Body Blessed be Plague and Pestilence and the Illness of Nations

“Blessed be all Loss and the Failure of Friends and the Sacrifice of Love

“Blessed be the Destruction of all Possessions, the Ruin of all Property, Fine Cities, and Great Palaces

“Blessed be the Disappointment of all Ambitions

“Blessed be all Failure and the ruin of every Earthly Hope

“Blessed be all Sorrows, Torments, Hardships, Endurances that demand Courage

“Blessed be these things—for of these things cometh the making of a Man”

Peter, clinging to the Giant's Finger, staggered in the wind. The world was hidden now in a mist of rain. He was alone—and he was happy, happy, as he had never known happiness, in any time, before.

The rain lashed his face and his body. His clothes clung heavily about him.

He answered the storm:

“Make of me a man—to be afraid of nothing to be ready for everything—love, friendship, success  to take if it comes  to care nothing if these things are not for me—

“Make me brave! Make me brave!”

He fancied that once more against the wall of sea-mist he saw tremendous, victorious, the Rider on the Lion. But now, for the first time, the Rider's face was turned towards him—

And Behold—he was the Rider!