Part 87 (2/2)

Then the preacher lost control of his imagination and swept his hearers along with him as he fabricated horrible fancies. The people were terror-stricken, and not until the last hymn was given out did they recover the colour of their blanched faces. Then they sang as with one voice, and after the benediction had been p.r.o.nounced and they were surging down the aisles in close packs, they started the hymn again.

Even when they had left the church they could not disperse. Out in the square were the thousands who had not been able to get inside the doors, and every moment the vast proportions of the crowd were swelled. The ground was covered, the windows round about were thrown up and full of faces, and people had clambered on to the railings of the church, and even on to the roofs of the houses.

Somebody went to the sacristy and told the Father what was happening outside. He was now like a man beside himself, and going out on to the steps of the church where he could be seen by all, he lifted his hands and p.r.o.nounced a prayer in a sonorous and fervent voice:

”How long, O Lord, how long? From the bosom of G.o.d, where thou reposest, look down on the world where thou didst walk as a man. Didst thou not teach us to pray 'Thy kingdom come'? Didst thou not say thy kingdom was near; that some who stood with thee should not taste of death till they had seen it come with power; that when it came the poor should be blessed, the hungry should be fed, the blind should see, the heavy-laden should find rest, and the will of thy Father should be done on earth even as it is done in heaven? But nigh upon two thousand years lave gone, O Lord, and thy kingdom hath not come. In thy name now doth the Pharisee give alms in the streets to the sound of a trumpet going before him. In thy name now doth the Levite pa.s.s by on the other side when a man has fallen among thieves. In thy name now doth the priest buy and sell the glad tidings of the kingdom, giving for the gospel of G.o.d the commandments of men, living in rich men's houses, faring sumptuously every day, praying with his lips, 'Give us this day our daily bread,'

but saying to his; soul: 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.' How long, O Lord, how long?”

Hardly had John Storm stepped back when the heavy clouds broke into mutterings of thunder. So low were the sounds at first that in the general tumult they were scarcely noticed; but they came again and again, louder and louder with every fresh reverberation, and then the excitement of the people became intense and terrible. It was as if the heavens themselves had spoken to give sign and a.s.surance of the calamity that had been foretold.

First a woman began to scream as if in the pains of labour. Then a young girl cried out for mercy, and accused herself of countless and nameless offences. Then the entire crowd seemed to burst into sobs and moans and agonizing expressions of despair, mingled with shouts of wild laughter and mad thanksgiving. ”Pardon, pardon!” ”O Jesus, save me!” ”O Saviour of sinners!” ”O G.o.d, have mercy upon me!” ”O my heart, my heart!” Some threw themselves on the ground, stiff and motionless and insensible as dead men. Others stood over the stricken people and prayed for their relief from the power of Satan. Others fell into convulsions, and yet others, with wild and staring eyes, rejoiced in their own salvation.

It was now almost dark and some of the people who had been out to the Derby were returning home in their gigs and coster's carts, laughing, singing, and nearly all of them drunk. There were wild encounters. A young soldier (it was Charlie Wilkes) came upon Pincher the p.a.w.nbroker.

”Wot tcher, myte? Wot's yer amoosemint now?”

”Silence, you evil liver, you gambler, you son of Belial!”

”Stou thet now--d'ye want a kepple er black eyes or a pench on the nowze?”

At nine o'clock the police of Westminster, being unable to disperse the crowd, seat to Scotland Yard for the mounted constabulary.

VI.

Meantime the man who was the first cause of the tumult sat alone in his cell-like chamber under the church, a bare room without carpet or rug, and having no furniture except a block bed, a small washstand, two chairs, a table, a prayer stool and crucifix, and a print of the Virgin and Child. He heard the singing of the people outside, but it brought him neither inspiration nor comfort. Nature could no longer withstand the strain he had put upon it, and he was in deep dejection. It was one of those moments of revulsion which comes to the strongest soul when at the crown or near the crown of his expectations he asks himself, ”What is the good?” A flood of tender recollections was coming over him. He was thinking of the past, the happy past, the past of love and innocence which he had spent with Glory, of the little green isle in the Irish Sea, and of all the sweetness of the days they had pa.s.sed together before she had fallen to the temptations of the world and he had become the victim of his hard if lofty fate. Oh, why had he denied himself the joys that came to all others? To what end had he given up the rewards of life which the poorest and the weakest and the meanest of men may share?

Love, woman's love, why had he turned his back upon it? Why had he sacrificed himself? O G.o.d, if, indeed, it were all in vain!

Brother Andrew put his head in at the half-open door. His brother, the p.a.w.nbroker, was there and had something to say to the Father. Pincher's face looked over Andrew's shoulder. The muscles of the man's eyes were convulsed by religious mania.

”I've just sold my biziness, sir, and we 'aven't a roof to cover us now!” he cried, in the tone of one who had done something heroic.

John asked him what was to become of his mother.

”Lor', sir, ain't it the beginning of the end? That's the gawspel, ain't it? 'The foxes hev 'oles and the birds of the air hev nests----'”

And then close behind the man, interrupting him and pus.h.i.+ng him aside, there came another with fixed and staring eyes, crying: ”Look 'ere, Father! Look! Twenty years I 'obbled on a stick, and look at me now!

Praise the Lawd, I'm cured, en' no bloomin' errer! I'm a brand as was plucked from the burnin' when my werry ends 'ad caught the flames!

Praise the Lawd, amen!”

John rebuked them and turned them out of the room, but he was almost in as great a frenzy. When he had shut the door his mind went back to thoughts of Glory. She, too, was hurrying to the doom that was coming on all this wicked city. He had tried to save her from it, but he had failed. What could he do now? He felt a desire to do something, something else, something extraordinary.

Sitting on the end of the bed he began again to recall Glory's face as he had seen it at the race-course. And now it came to him as a shock after his visions of her early girlhood. He thought there was a certain vulgarity in it which, he had not observed before--a slight coa.r.s.ening of its expression, an indescribable degeneracy even under the glow of its developed beauty. With her full red lips and curving throat and dancing eyes, she was smiling into the face of the man who was sitting by her side. Her smile was a significant smile, and the bright and eager look with which the man answered it was as full of meaning. He could read their thoughts. What had happened? Were all barriers broken down?

Was everything understood between them?

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