The man lifted his voice at last.
"I can't do it—God forgive me, I can't—I can't. Make your peace with Him, as I shall. Live out your life on your knees for ever, as I shall. I'm going. You shall never see me no more."
Then he spoke to the child.
"Get to your mother," he said.
Gregory, frightened at his face and voice, ran back as fast as he could go, and Brendon departed. But a moment later, when shrill shriek upon shriek cut his ears, he stopped, turned again, and went to his child; because he knew that the little thing was alone.
CHAPTER XV
SET OF MOON
On a night at mid-December, in a darkened room, Daniel Brendon sat writing laboriously. The candle beside him was shielded so that the light should fall only on his papers, on a copy of the "War Cry," and on his Bible. In a corner were two beds, side by side, and his boy occupied the smaller one and slept peacefully there. Upon a chair by the little bed Gregory's clean clothes were placed for the morrow. A small scarlet jersey hung close by, and beside it a very large one, that Daniel would wear.
Brendon had joined the Salvation Army and was captain of the Lydford Branch. Indeed, he had founded this branch, and worked like a giant by night and day to increase its strength. Twenty-five persons were already numbered.
He rose up and stretched his arms; then sat down and read through the notes that he had made. To-morrow the man would preach from the twelfth chapter of Job and the twenty-second verse.