Every one knew it in Walktown now.
There was a sudden unanimous rush of people to the vicarage.
Each big, luxurious house all round sent out its eager owners into the night.
They came to show the pastor, who had not failed them in the darkness, their joy and gratitude now that light had come at last.
How warm and hearty these North-country people were! Mr. Byars had never penetrated so deeply beneath the somewhat forbidding crust of manner and surface-hardness before.
Mingled with the sense of shame and misery at their own lukewarmness, there was a fine and genuine desire to show the vicar how they honoured him for his steadfastness.
"You've been an example to all of us, vicar," said a hard-faced, brassy-voiced cotton-spinner, a kindly light in his eyes, his lips somewhat tremulous.
"We haven't done as we ought to by t' church," said another, "but you'll see that altered, Mr. Byars. Eh! but our faith has been weak! There'll be many a Christian's heart full of shame and sorrow for the past months this night, I'm thinking."
They crowded round him, this knot of expensively dressed people, hard-faced and harsh-spoken, with a warmth and contrition which moved the old man inexpressibly.
Never before had he been so near to them. Dimly he began to think he saw a wise and awful purpose of God, who had allowed this iniquity and calamity that the faith of the world might be strengthened.