Onward they went—a huddled mass of humanity,
literate and illiterate, of all ages, of all conditions, and none laughed, none grinned, none smiled, none spoke—all that was past. They stopped, they moved again—as the Flopper stopped and moved. Occasionally a child cried out—occasionally there came a discordant, racking cough—that was all.
Tenser grew the very atmosphere they breathed—heavier upon them fell the sense of something almost supernatural, beyond the human and the finite. Skeptic and faint believer, sinner, Christian and scoffer, they were all alike now in the presence of a faith whose evidence was before them in harrowing vividness, in the torment and agony of a fellow creature who sought again through faith a restoration to the image of his kind. There was no creed, no school of ethical belief, no conflicting orthodoxy to quibble over, no ground on which atheist and theologian even might stand apart—there was only faith—a faith whose trappings none might take issue with, for it was naked faith and the trappings were stripped from it—it was faith in its very essence, boundless, utter, simple, limitless, staggering, appalling them.
Its consummation? That was another thing—a thing that in the presence of such faith as this brought human pity, sympathy and sorrow to its full, brought dread and terror. Faith such as this they had never conceived; faith such as this, if it was to prove a shattered thing, was for its exponent to drink the very dregs of misery and
despair—and yet, rising above that possibility, flinging grim challenge at their doubts, stood this very faith, mighty in itself, perfect in its confidence, heroic in its agony, that all might gaze upon from a common standpoint and know—as faith.
No whispering breeze stirred the young leaves in the trees; in the stillness of the afternoon came only the heavy, pulsing throb of Nature's breathing. One hundred, two, three hundred, they moved along, slow, sinuous, troubled, their eyes straight before them or upon the ground at their feet—only the children looked with frightened, startled eyes into their parents' faces, and clung the closer.
Out upon the wagon track they debouched and spread in a long, thin line beneath the maples on either side of the Flopper—and waited.