Part 29 (1/2)

The curiosity of people in the street also seemed to abate. The more respectable cla.s.s of people are too proud to show interest in the same way that gaping children show it, and most people in this village belonged to the more respectable cla.s.s. Those who had come to doors or windows on the street retired from them just as Harkness had done; those out in the street went on their ways, with the exception of two men of the more demonstrative sort, who went and looked down the alley after the stranger, and called out jestingly to some one in it.

Then the old man stopped, and, with his face still upturned, as if blind to everything but pure light, took up his position on one side of the narrow street. He had only gone some forty paces down it. A policeman, coming up in front of the hotel, looked on, listening to the jesters.

Then he and they drew a little nearer, the children who had followed stood round, one man appeared at the other end of the alley. On either side the houses were high and the windows few, but high up in the hotel there was a small window that lighted a linen press, and at that small window, with the door of the closet locked on the inside, Eliza stood unseen, and looked and listened.

The voice of the preacher was loud, unnatural also in its rising and falling, the voice of a deaf man who could not hear his own tones. His words were not what any one expected. This was the sermon he preached:

”In a little while He that shall come will not tarry. Many shall say to Him in that day, 'Lord, Lord,' and He shall say, 'Depart from me; I never knew you.'”

His voice, which had become very vehement, suddenly sank, and he was silent.

”Upon my word, that's queer,” said one of the men who stood near the policeman.

”He's staring mad,” said the other man in plain clothes. ”He should be in the asylum.”

This second man went away, but the first speaker and the policeman drew still nearer, and the congregation did not diminish, for the man who left was replaced by the poor woman with the checked shawl over her head who had first followed the preacher up the street, and who now appeared standing listening at a house corner. She was well known in the village as the wife of a drunkard.

The old man began speaking again in softer voice, but there was the same odd variety of tones which had exciting effect.

”Why do you defraud your brother? Why do you judge your brother? Why do you set at nought your brother? Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, you do it to Him.”

His voice died away again. His strong face had become illumined, and he brought down his gaze toward the listeners.

”If any man shall do His will he shall know of the doctrine. He will know--yes, know--for there is no other knowledge as sure as this.”

Then, in such a colloquial way that it almost seemed as if the listeners themselves had asked the question, he said: ”What shall we do that we may work the works of G.o.d?”

And he smiled upon them, and held out his hands as if in blessing, and lifted up his face again to heaven, and cried, ”This is the work of G.o.d, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent.”

As if under some spell, the few to whom he had spoken stood still, till the preacher slowly s.h.i.+fted himself and began to walk away by the road he had come.

Some of the children went after him as before. The poor woman disappeared behind the house she had been standing against. The policeman and his companion began to talk, looking the while at the object of their discussion.

Eliza, in the closet, leaned her head against the pile of linen on an upper shelf, and was quite still for some time.

CHAPTER X.

Princ.i.p.al Trenholme had been gone from Ch.e.l.laston a day or two on business. When he returned one evening, he got into his smart little sleigh which was in waiting at the railway station, and was driving himself home, when his attention was arrested and his way blocked by a crowd in front of the hotel. He did not force a way for his horse, but drew up, listening and looking. It was a curious picture. The wide street of snow and the houses were dusky with night, except where light chanced to glow in doorways and windows. The collection of people was motley. Above, all the sky seemed brought into insistent notice as a roof or covering, partly because pale pink streamers of flickering northern light were pa.s.sing over it, partly because the leader of the crowd, an old man, by looking upwards, drew the gaze of all to follow whither his had gone.

Trenholme heard his loud voice calling: ”Behold He shall come again, and every eye shall look on Him Whom they have pierced. Blessed are those servants whom their Lord when He cometh shall find watching.”

The scene was foreign to life in Ch.e.l.laston. Trenholme, who had no mind to stand on the skirts of the crowd, thrust his reins into the hand of his rustic groom, and went up the broad steps of the hotel, knowing that he would there have his inquiries most quickly answered.

In the bar-room about thirty men were crowded about the windows, looking at the preacher, not listening, for the double gla.s.s, shut out the preacher's voice. They were interested, debating loudly among themselves, and when they saw who was coming up the steps, they said to each other and the landlord, ”Put it to the Princ.i.p.al.” There were men of all sorts in this group, most of them very respectable; but when Trenholme stood inside the door, his soft hat shading his shaven face, his fur-lined driving coat lying back from the finer cloth it covered, he was a very different sort of man from any of them. He did not know that it was merely by the influence of this difference (of which perhaps he was less conscious than any of them) that they were provoked to question him. Hutchins, the landlord, sat at the back of the room on his high office chair.

”Good evening, Princ.i.p.al,” said he. ”Glad to see you in the place again, sir. Have you heard of a place called Turrifs Road Station? 'Tain't on our map.”