Why Alec Trenholme followed the old man toward the wood he himself would have found it a little difficult to tell. If this was really Cameron he did not wish that he should escape; but, at the same time, he saw no means of keeping him against his will, unless he went of his own accord to some place where other men could be called to help. Quite apart, however, from the question whether the stranger was Cameron or not, Trenholme felt for him a sort of respect which character alone inspires, and which character written in a man's appearance has often power to inspire without a word or action to interpret it further. It was because of this that curiosity to know where he was going and what for, and a real solicitude as to what would happen to him, were strong enough to lead the young man on.
They who have not walked upon snow by starlight do not know, perhaps, that the chief difficulty of such progress is that there is no shadow; perhaps they do not even know that at all times the difference between an upward and a downward slope is revealed to the eye by light and shade. The snow on which the two men were now walking had been left by the wind with slight undulations of surface, such as are produced in a glassy sea by the swing of a gentle under-swell; and Trenholme, not sensitive as the stranger seemed to be in the points of his snow-shoes, found himself stepping up when he thought himself stepping down, and the reverse. At last he stumbled and fell.
It is not a matter of ease to rise from a bed which yields endlessly to every pressure of arm or knee. Even a sea-bird, that strongest of flyers, finds it hard to rise from any but its own element; and before Trenholme had managed to spring up, as it were, from nothing, the man in front had in some way become aware of his presence for the first time, and of his fall; he turned and lifted him up with a strong hand. When Trenholme was walking again the other retained a firm hold of his arm, looked at him earnestly, and spoke to him. His words expressed a religious idea which was evidently occupying his whole mind.
"The Lord is coming presently to set up His kingdom," he said. "Are you ready to meet Him?"
On Alec Trenholme the effect of these words, more unexpected than any other words could have been, was first and chiefly to convince him that he was dealing with a witless person. Leaving him again, the speaker had hurried on in front, making his way still toward the wood. When Trenholme came up with him the wanderer had evidently found the place where he had been before, for there was the irregular circular track of his former wandering upon the snow. Trenholme counted himself a fool to have been able before to suppose that there was no track because he had not seen it. But he had hardly time for even this momentary glance at so small a matter, for the old man was standing with face uplifted to the stars, and he was praying aloud that the Divine Son of Man would return to earth and set up His kingdom.
Sometimes there was more light upon the dark scene, sometimes less, for giant rays of the northern light stalked the sky, passing from it, coming again, giving light faintly.
Trenholme felt an uncontrollable excitement come over him. His mind was carried out of himself, not so much to the poor man who was praying, as to the Divine Man to whom the supplication was addressed; for the voice of prayer spoke directly from the heart of the speaker to One who he evidently felt was his friend. The conviction of this other man that he knew to whom he was speaking caught hold of Alec Trenholme's mind with mastering force; he had no conviction of his own; he was not at all sure, as men count certainty, whether there was, or was not, any ear but his own listening to the other's words; but he did not notice his own belief or unbelief in the matter, any more than he noticed the air between him and the stars. The colourlessness of his own mind took on for the time the colour of the other's.
And the burden of the prayer was this: Our Father, thy kingdom come.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
The hardihood of the prayer was astonishing; all tender arguments of love were used, all reasonable arguments as of friend with friend and man with man, and its lengthened pathos was such that Trenholme felt his heart torn for pity within him.
"Look here!" he said at last. (He had been listening he knew not how long, but the planets in the sky above had moved westward. He took hold of the old man.) "Look here! He won't come so that you can see Him; but He's here just the same, you know."