VII
The organ was playing—very softly. Carolyn was a skilful manipulator of keyboards, and she had discovered that by carefully refraining from the use of certain keys—discreetly marked by postage stamps—she could produce a not unmusical effect of subdued harmony. This unquestionably added very much to the impression of a churchly atmosphere, carried out to the eye by the Christmas wreathing and twining of the heavy ropes of shining laurel leaves, and by the massing of the whole pulpit-front in the soft, dark green of hemlock boughs and holly. To the people who entered the
house with vivid memories of the burning July day when words hardly less burning had seemed to scorch the barren walls, this lamp-lit interior, clothed with the garments of the woods and fragrant with their breath, seemed a place so different that it could hardly be the same.
But the faces were the same—the faces. And George Tomlinson did not look at Asa Fraser, though he passed him in the aisle, beard to beard. Miss Jane Pollock stared hard at the back of Mrs. Maria Hill’s bonnet, in the pew in front of her, but when Mrs. Hill turned about to glance up at the organ-loft, to discover who was there, Miss Pollock’s face became as adamant, and her eyes remained fixed on her folded hands until Mrs. Hill had twisted about again, and there was no danger of their glances encountering. All over the church, likewise,
were people who avoided seeing each other, though conscious, all down their rigid backbones, that those with whom they had fallen out on that unhappy July day were present.
There was no vestry in the old meeting-house; no retiring place of any sort where the presiding minister might stay until the moment came for him to make his quiet and impressive entrance through a softly opening pulpit door. So when the Reverend William Sewall of St. John’s, of the neighbouring city, came into the North Estabrook sanctuary, it was as his congregation had entered, through the front door and up the aisle.
There was a turning of heads to see him come, but there was a staring of eyes, indeed, when it was seen by whom he was accompanied. The erect figure of the young man, in his unexceptionable attire, walked slowly,
to keep pace with the feeble footsteps of the very old man in his threadbare garments of the cut of half a century ago, and the sight of the two together was one of the most strangely touching things that had ever met the eyes of the people of North Estabrook. It may be said, therefore, that from that first moment there was an unexpected and unreckoned-with influence abroad in the place.
Now, to the subdued notes of the organ, which had been occupied with one theme, built upon with varying harmonies but ever appearing—though perhaps no ear but a trained one would have recognized it through the veil—was added the breath of voices. It was only an old Christmas carol, the music that of a German folk song, but dear to generations of Christmas singers everywhere. The North Estabrook people recognized it—yet did not recognize it. They
had never heard it sung like that before.
“Holy night! peaceful night!
All is dark, save the light
Yonder where they sweet vigils keep
O’er the Babe, who in silent sleep
Rests in heavenly peace.”
It was the presence of Margaret Sewall Fernald which had made it possible to attempt music at this service—the music which it seemed impossible to do without. Her voice was one of rare beauty, her leadership that of training. Her husband, Guy, possessed a reliable, if uncultivated, bass. Edson had sung a fair tenor in his college glee-club. By the use of all her arts of persuasion Nan had provided an alto singer, from the ranks of the choir which had once occupied this organ-loft—the daughter of Asa Fraser. Whether the quartette thus formed would have passed muster—as a quartette—with the choir-master of St. John’s,
may have been a question, but it is certain the music they produced was so far above that which the old church had ever heard before within its walls that had the singers been a detachment from the choir celestial those who heard them could hardly have listened with ears more charmed.
As “Holy Night” came down to him, William Sewall bent his head. But Ebenezer Blake lifted his. His dim blue eyes looked up—up and up—quite through the old meeting-house roof—to the starry skies where it seemed to him angels sang again. He forgot the people assembled in front of him—he forgot the responsibilities upon his shoulders—those bent shoulders which had long ago laid down such responsibilities. He saw visions. It is the old men who see visions. The young men dream dreams.
The young city rector read the Christmas Story—out of the worn
copy of the Scriptures which had served this pulpit almost from the beginning. He read it in the rich and cultivated voice of his training, but quite simply. Then Margaret sang, to the slender accompaniment of the little organ, the same solo which a famous soprano had sung that morning at the service at St. John’s—and her brother William, listening from the pulpit, thought she sang it better. There was the quality in Margaret’s voice which reaches hearts—a quality which somehow the famous soprano’s notes had lacked. And every word could be heard, too—the quiet throughout the house was so absolute—except when Asa Fraser cleared his throat loudly in the midst of one of the singer’s most beautiful notes. At the sound Mrs. George Tomlinson gave him a glance which ought to have annihilated him—but it did not. She could not know that the throat-clearing was a high tribute
to the song—coming from Asa Fraser.
“How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given;
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessing of His heaven....
O Holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.”
Then William Sewall made a prayer. Those who had been looking to see old Elder Blake take this part in the service began to wonder if he had been asked into the pulpit simply as a courtesy. They supposed he could pray, at least. They knew he had never ceased doing it—and for them. Elder Blake had not an enemy in the village. It seemed strange that he couldn’t be given some part, in spite of his extreme age. To be sure, it was many years since anybody had asked him to take part in any service whatsoever, even a funeral service—for which, as is well
understood, a man retains efficiency long after he has ceased to be of use in the pulpit, no matter how devastating may be the weather. But that fact did not seem to bear upon the present situation.
A number of people, among them Miss Jane Pollock, were beginning to feel more than a little indignant about it, and so lost the most of Sewall’s prayer, which was a good one, and not out of the prayer-book, though there were phrases in it which suggested that source, as was quite natural. The city man meant to do it all, then. Doubtless he thought nobody from the country knew how to do more than to pronounce the benediction. Doubtless that was to be Elder Blake’s insignificant part—to pronounce the——
Miss Jane Pollock looked up quickly. She had been staring steadily at the back of Maria Hill’s
mink collar, in front of her, through the closing sentences of the prayer. But what was this? Elder Blake had risen and was coming forward. Was he going to read a hymn? But he had no book. And he had taken off his spectacles. He could see better, as was known, without his spectacles, when looking at a distance.
William Sewall’s prayer was not ended. He could no longer be heard by the people, but in his seat, behind the drooping figure of the old man, he was asking things of the Lord as it seemed to him he had never asked anything before. Could His poor, feeble, “superannuated” old servant ever speak the message that needed to be spoken that night? William Sewall felt more than ever that he himself could not have done it. Could Ebenezer Blake?
“Make him strong, O God,—make
him strong,” requested William Sewall, fervently. Then, forgetting even a likeness to prayer-book phrase, he added, with fists unconsciously tight-clenched, in the language of the athletic field where a few years back he himself had taken part in many a hard-fought battle— “Help him to buck up!”
THERE WAS FLESH AND BLOOD IN THE MESSAGE HE GAVE THEM, AND IT WAS THE MESSAGE THEY NEEDED
