on hands and knees, and
he stood on her back.
"Can you see? What's the matter?"
Taffy gasped. "_He's_ in there!"
"What?--the Old Gentleman?"
"Yes; no--your grandfather!"
"What? Let me get up. Here, you kneel--"
It was true. Under the rays of a paraffin lamp, in face of the
kneeling congregation, sat Squire Moyle; his body stiffly upright on
the bench, his jaws rigid, his eyes with horror in them fastened upon
the very window through which Honoria peered--fastened, it seemed to
her, upon her face. But, no; he saw nothing. The Bryanites were
praying; Honoria saw their lips moving. Their eyes were all on the
old man's face. In the straining silence his mouth opened--but only
for a moment--while his tongue wetted his parched lips.
A man by the pulpit-stairs shuffled his feet. A sigh passed through
the Chapel as he rose and relaxed the tension. It was Jacky Pascoe.
He stepped up to the Squire, and, laying a hand on his shoulder,
said, gently, persuasively, yet so clearly that Honoria could hear
every word:
"Try, brother. Keep on trying. O, I've knowed cases--You can never
tell how near salvation is. One minute the heart's like a stone, and
the next maybe 'tis melted and singing like fat in a pan.
'Tis working! 'tis working!"
The congregation broke out with cries: "Amen!" "Glory, glory!"
The Squire's lips moved and he muttered something. But stony despair
sat in his eyes.
"Ay, glory, glory! You've been a doubter, and you doubt no longer.
Soon you'll be a shouter. Man, you'll dance like as David danced
before the Ark! You'll feel it in your toes! Come along, friends,
while he's resting a minute! Sing all together--oh, the blessed
peace of it!--
"'I long to be there, His glory to share--'"
He pitched the note, and the congregation took up the second line
with a rolling, gathering volume of song. It broke on the night like
the footfall of a regiment at charge. Honoria scrambled off Taffy's
back, and the two slipped away to the high road.
"Shall you tell your father?"
"I--I don't know."
She stooped and found a loose stone. "He shan't find salvation
to-night," she said heroically.
As the stone crashed through the window the two children pelted off.
They ran on the soft turf by the wayside, and only halted to listen
when they reached Tredinnis's great gates. The sound of feet running
far up the road set them off again, but now in opposite ways.
Honoria sped dow
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