“That’s him! That’s him. That long-sparred fellar. Three cheers for him!” shouted the mate of a collier, flinging up his hat.
A billow of applause started along the beach. Then a woman’s voice called out:—
“Boys, he don’t like it!” and the wave of sound dropped as suddenly as it rose.
“He comes!” cried an Italian.
“So he does, Tony, so he does!” echoed the woman. “God bless him!”
“He comes,” repeated Tony. “Hush you, boys—the Christman comes!”
The Professor of Theology pressed the tips of his scholarly fingers upon his aging eyes.
It was some moments before he commanded himself, and looked up.
Bayard stood bareheaded in the color of the red sun. He was pale, notwithstanding the warmth of the evening, and had a look so worn that those who loved him most felt unspoken fear like the grip of a hand at their hearts. The transparence, the delicacy of his appearance,—bathed in the scarlet of the murky sunset, as he was,—gave him an aspect half unreal. He seemed for the moment to be a beautiful phantom rising from a mist of blood. A hush, half of reverence, half of awe, fell upon all the people; it grew so still that the lazy breath of the shallow wave at that moment spent upon the beach, could be heard stirring through the calm.
Suddenly, and before the preacher had spoken any word, the impressive silence was marred by a rude sound. It was a girl’s coarse laugh.