The eyes of the prophet shone in the glare from the footlights—or perhaps it was rather that he saw God, as it had been promised to the pure in heart.
There came a sound of weeping from behind; Egholm turned to see. It was Lystrup, the cobbler. His flat, brown fingers clutched and curled convulsively, and his bony head, with the queer feathery hair, rocked to and fro, as he wept and moaned, without covering his face.
The cobbler’s emotion spread to those around. Within a second it had reached the hindmost bench, where the old women from the almshouses sat. There was a flutter of movement among the shawls, accompanied by a low wailing. Egholm noticed with some surprise that deaf old Maren was weeping with the best. Evidently, the influence of Angel Karlsen could manifest itself in other ways than that of common speech.
Egholm was greatly moved; he withdrew his gaze, and looked down at the floor as if in search of something fixed and immovable. But Fru Laursen’s back began to work, and soon her bulky frame was slopping incontinently about in front of him. Egholm felt an ache within him, something comparable to hunger; he raised his eyes and seemed to see, through tears, great folded angel-wings behind Karlsen’s back. This was too much; Egholm surrendered himself utterly, and wept. And his weeping was louder and more passionate than the weeping of those about him; some there were who ceased at the sound, and watched him.
Young Karlsen had planted himself against the wall by the end of Egholm’s bench, and was enjoying the effect. The wrinkles in the young apostle’s face were ceaselessly at play, forming new and intricate labyrinths without end. As soon as the Angel had finished his prayer, young Karlsen slipped in close to Egholm and sat down beside him.
“Straight to the heart,” he said admiringly. “That’s the sort of goods, what? It fetches them.”
Egholm dried his eyes bashfully.
“That’s the way to drive a lot like this. But”—a sudden gleam of contempt shone in his blue-and-watery sheep’s eyes—“it’s about the only thing he can do. Angel, indeed! Once he’s got you here, he’s good for something, I’ll allow. But who is it fills the hall?—eh, young man? Who is it gets them here to start with? Jutland and the half of Fyn, that’s my district. I’m an Evangelist—a fisher of men. And I’ve my little gift of tongues as well—and need it, or the fishes wouldn’t bite as they do.
“Hear my little speech this evening? Not much in it to speak of. But then I’d finished really, by the time you came. But I’ve got another on hand that’ll do the trick. The Word, what?”
“Yes,” sighed Egholm accommodatingly.