The Sign of the Broken Sword
The thousand arms of the forest were grey, and its million fingers
silver. In a sky of dark green-blue-like slate the stars were bleak
and brilliant like splintered ice. All that thickly wooded and sparsely
tenanted countryside was stiff with a bitter and brittle frost. The
black hollows between the trunks of the trees looked like bottomless,
black caverns of that Scandinavian hell, a hell of incalculable cold.
Even the square stone tower of the church looked northern to the point
of heathenry, as if it were some barbaric tower among the sea rocks of
Iceland. It was a queer night for anyone to explore a churchyard. But,
on the other hand, perhaps it was worth exploring.
It rose abruptly out of the ashen wastes of forest in a sort of hump or
shoulder of green turf that looked grey in the starlight. Most of the
graves were on a slant, and the path leading up to the church was
as steep as a staircase. On the top of the hill, in the one flat and
prominent place, was the monument for which the place was famous. It
contrasted strangely with the featureless graves all round, for it was
the work of one of the greatest sculptors of modern Europe; and yet his
fame was at once forgotten in the fame of the man whose image he had
made. It showed, by touches of the small silver pencil of starlight, the
massive metal figure of a soldier recumbent, the strong hands sealed
in an everlasting worship, the great head pillowed upon a gun. The
venerable face was bearded, or rather whiskered, in the old, heavy
Colonel Newcome fashion. The uniform, though suggested with the few
strokes of simplicity, was that of modern war. By his right side lay a
sword, of which the tip was broken off; on the left side lay a Bible. On
glowing summer afternoons wagonettes came full of Americans
The thousand arms of the forest were grey, and its million fingers
silver. In a sky of dark green-blue-like slate the stars were bleak
and brilliant like splintered ice. All that thickly wooded and sparsely
tenanted countryside was stiff with a bitter and brittle frost. The
black hollows between the trunks of the trees looked like bottomless,
black caverns of that Scandinavian hell, a hell of incalculable cold.
Even the square stone tower of the church looked northern to the point
of heathenry, as if it were some barbaric tower among the sea rocks of
Iceland. It was a queer night for anyone to explore a churchyard. But,
on the other hand, perhaps it was worth exploring.
It rose abruptly out of the ashen wastes of forest in a sort of hump or
shoulder of green turf that looked grey in the starlight. Most of the
graves were on a slant, and the path leading up to the church was
as steep as a staircase. On the top of the hill, in the one flat and
prominent place, was the monument for which the place was famous. It
contrasted strangely with the featureless graves all round, for it was
the work of one of the greatest sculptors of modern Europe; and yet his
fame was at once forgotten in the fame of the man whose image he had
made. It showed, by touches of the small silver pencil of starlight, the
massive metal figure of a soldier recumbent, the strong hands sealed
in an everlasting worship, the great head pillowed upon a gun. The
venerable face was bearded, or rather whiskered, in the old, heavy
Colonel Newcome fashion. The uniform, though suggested with the few
strokes of simplicity, was that of modern war. By his right side lay a
sword, of which the tip was broken off; on the left side lay a Bible. On
glowing summer afternoons wagonettes came full of Americans
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