Into the Highways and Hedges

by F. F. Montrésor

The marshes were still snow-covered in parts; the last vestige of green was frozen away, the ground lay stretched in drab and grey; save where, here and there, a salt-water pool showed black against the snow.

The preacher was on his way to baptise a child that had been born in one of a cluster of wooden huts, that were planted like brown mushrooms under the scant shelter of a group of alders.

His feet and Margaret's made a track all the way from the farm; and the girl kept glancing back at the double row of footprints, as though they had a fascination for her.

It struck Meg that the baptism was regarded as a sort of lucky charm, or incantation; but, when Barnabas stood outside the huts to preach, there was no doubt that, as usual, he carried his hearers with him.

Meg stood a little apart and watched him with new eyes.

She had thought of the message, not of the messenger, when she had first fallen under the spell of his enthusiasm. She tried now—and she found it strangely difficult—to keep possession of her soul; to stand aloof mentally, as well as actually, and to look on.

The man's reddish hair and beard and sunburnt face made a spot of colour in the leaden grey landscape; his vigorous personality was in strong contrast to the impersonal solemnity of the marsh. And his religion was personal too; it was the passionate uncalculating loyalty of one who has seen his God in the Man of Sorrows, and cannot rest for following those blood-stained footsteps that have drawn so many after them, and have left so deep a print in the world's history.

The half-dozen men and women who surrounded Barnabas were of as low a type as Margaret had ever seen; a wizened, stunted race, dwarfed by marsh fever and unhealthy living. But more than one of them were moved to tears, at the words they heard. How much did they really understand of his discourse? and how much was due to the curiously overpowering and personal influence that Barnabas possessed? This power "from the Lord,"—was it indeed from the Lord? or would he have wielded it, whether "converted" or not, purely by reason of his undoubting decision, and splendid physical strength? What had turned his life into this channel? and what—her eyes turned again to the double line across the snow—O God, what was to come of it all, in the many years before them?

It was bitterly cold, and the grey mists clung around them on their walk home.

Born and bred in the marshes, the preacher knew his way blindfolded, but the pathless expanse had something awe-inspiring in it. Meg reflected aloud that strangers might be drowned in a salt pool, and be never heard of more, if left guideless.