The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“That is how it will be styled by many, I doubt not,” he said. “And being as it must be, a strange mixture of the two—a church-going and a fairgoing—I have my fears that 'twill fall 'twixt the two. If the thing was more of a failure 'twould be a huge success. You take me, Dick?”

“Only vague, Hal—only vague, man,” replied the water-finder, after a long cogitating pause. “When you spake the words there came a flash upon me like the glim from the lanthorn when 'tis opened sudden. I saw the meaning clear enough like as 'twere a stretch of valley on an uneven night of moonlight and cloud. Seemed as if there was a rift in your discourse and the moon poured through. But then the clouds fled across and I walk in the dark. Say 't again, Hal, and it may be that 'twill be plain. I have oft thought that your speech lit up marvellous well.”

The blacksmith grinned.

“Maybe that is by reason of my work with the forge,” he said. “The furnace is black enough until I give it a blast with the bellows and then 'tis a very ruby stone struck wi' lightning.”

“Maybe—ay, very likely,” said the little man doubtfully.

The smith grinned again.

“You don't altogether see it with my eyes, friend,” he said. “How could you, Dick, our trades being natural enemies the one to t'other? My best friend is fire, yours is water. But what was on my mind this moment was the likelihood that the light-hearted may be fain to treat this great serious field gathering as though it were no more than a fair. Now, I say still that if 'twas no more than a gathering together of two or three parishes none would think of it in light of a fair, but being as 'tis—a marvel of moving men and women—why, then, there may be levity and who knows what worse.”

“Ay, it looks as if the carcase of the hills was alive and moving with crawling maggots,” remarked Dick. The summit of the hill on the road had been reached, and thus a view was given him and his companion of the hollow in the valley beyond, which was black with the slow-moving procession.

And there were many who, while anxious for the success of the meeting, shared Hal Holmes's fears and doubts as to its result. What impression could one man make upon so vast an assembly in the open air, they asked of each other. They shook their heads.

These were the sober-minded people who sympathised with the aims of the preacher—God-fearing men and women to whom his hopes had been communicated. They knew that hundreds in that procession on the march to the meeting-place were no more serious than they would be had they been going to a fair. They were going to meet their friends, and they were impelled by no higher motives than those which were the result of the instinct of the gregarious animals. Many of them lived far away from a town or even a village, in the wilder parts of the Duchy, and they laid hold on an opportunity that promised to bring them in contact with a greater crowd than they had ever joined before. The joy of being one of the crowd was enough for them; the preaching was only an insignificant incident in the day's proceedings. The sober-minded, knowing this, were afraid that in these people the spirit of levity might be aroused, especially if they could not hear the words of the preacher, and the consequences would be disastrous.