ops, and nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation
and composure. But one figure, low down on the cold north side of the
building, had neither crown, mitre, not nimbus, and its face was hard and
bitter and downcast; it must be a demon, declared the fat blue pigeons
that roosted and sunned themselves all day on the ledges of the parapet;
but the old belfry jackdaw, who was an authority on ecclesiastical
architecture, said it was a lost soul. And there the matter rested.

One autumn day there fluttered on to the Cathedral roof a slender, sweet-
voiced bird that had wandered away from the bare fields and thinning
hedgerows in search of a winter roosting-place. It tried to rest its
tired feet under the shade of a great angel-wing or to nestle in the
sculptured folds of a kingly robe, but the fat pigeons hustled it away
from wherever it settled, and the noisy sparrow-folk drove it off the
ledges. No respectable bird sang with so much feeling, they cheeped one
to another, and the wanderer had to move on.

Only the effigy of the Lost Soul offered a place of refuge. The pigeons
did not consider it safe to perch on a projection that leaned so much out
of the perpendicular, and was, besides, too much in the shadow. The
figure did not cross its hands in the pious attitude of the other graven
dignitaries, but its arms were folded as in defiance and their angle made
a snug resting-place for the little bird. Every evening it crept
trustfully into its corner against the stone breast of the image, and the
darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird
grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from
time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its
sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may
have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the
wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and
unhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, the song of
his little guest would come up in snatches to the lonely watcher, and at
evening, when the vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey bats slid
out of their hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright-eyed bird would
return, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into the arms that were
waiting for him. Those were happy days for the Dark Image. Only the
great bell of the Cathedral rang out daily its mocking message, "After
joy . . .