n might have done
when he began to be in want, and would fain have fed himself with the
husks that the swine did eat."

Knowles got up moodily.

"Whose work is it, then?" he muttered, following the men down the
street; for they walked on. "The world has waited six thousand years for
help. It comes slowly,--slowly, Vandyke; even through your religion."

The young man did not answer: looked up, with quiet, rapt eyes, through
the silent city, and the clear gray beyond. They passed a little church
lighted up for evening service: as if to give a meaning to the old man's
words, they were chanting the one anthem of the world, the _Gloria in
Excelsis_. Hearing the deep organ-roll, the men stopped outside to
listen: it heaved and sobbed through the night, as if bearing up to God
the pain and wrong of countless aching hearts, then was silent, and a
single voice swept over the moors in a long, lamentable cry:--"Thou that
takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us!"

The men stood silent, until the hush was broken by a low murmur:--"For
Thou only art holy." Holmes had taken off his hat, unconscious that he
did it; he put it on slowly, and walked on. What was it that Knowles
had said to him once about mean and selfish taints on his divine soul?
"For Thou only art holy": if there were truth in that!

"How quiet it is!" he said, as they stopped to leave him. It was,--a
breathless quiet; the great streets of the town behind them were
shrouded in snow; the hills, the moors, the prairie swept off into the
skyless dark, a gray and motionless sea lit by a low watery moon. "The
very earth listens," he said.

"Listens for what?" said the literal old Doctor.

"I think it listens always," said Vandyke, his eye on fire. "For its
King--that shall be. Not as He came before. It has not long to wait now:
the New Year is not far off."

"I've no faith in folding your hands, waiting for it; nor have you
either, Charley," growled Knowles. "There's an infernal lot of work to
be done before it comes, I fancy. Here, let me light my cigar."

Holmes bade them good-night, laughing, and struck into the by-road
through the hills. He shook hands with Vandyke before he went,--a thing
he scarce ever did with anybody. Knowles noticed it, and, after he was
out of hearing, mumbled out some sarcasm at "a minister of the gospel
consorting with a cold, silent scoundrel like that!" Vandyke listened to
his scolding in his usual lazy way, and they wen