“Never!” he cried, with extraordinary passion—“Never will I be one of You! Never, so help me God!”
As he spoke, a sudden terrific roar of mingled flame and wind sounded in his ears,—the peacock’s tail of light playing up like foam against the Green Pulpit leaped to an abnormal height, and swallowed up the “Reverend Mr. Firebrand” in a twinkling,—then, spreading itself into a rolling stream of fire it swept over the crowd of Goblins and drove them all helter-skelter before it like dead leaves drifting in a hurricane, engulfing them all out of sight save one,—the self-styled “Professor” that still, with its bone of an arm thrust familiarly through McNason’s, remained beside him as it were “on guard.” The Green Pulpit vanished, and nothing remained of the whole shadowy building that had seemed to be a Church, save the great organ, where now instead of a Goblin, sat a boy acolyte dressed in a little white surplice. Under his tender young fingers the notes breathed tremulously but sweetly, and presently he opened his cherub mouth and sang:
“O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands,—serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song!”
Here the anthem was taken up by some mighty invisible choir:
“Be ye sure that the Lord He is God; it is He that hath made us and not We Ourselves——”
And all at once a white cloud filled the near and distant spaces like the rushing-in of a wave, and on this opaque pearly vapour came floating a great number of dazzling Angelic Shapes, wonderfully fair, gloriously beautiful, carrying palms in their uplifted hands and singing:
“Glory! Glory to God in the highest! And on earth, peace and goodwill! Glory to God!”
Stricken with a great awe, Josiah McNason looked and listened. He trembled violently. Should he kneel? He wondered! He had often pretended to kneel in Church—though he had really only bent his back slightly for convention’s sake, but now——?
Before he could make up his mind one way or the other the Goblin’s clutch descended once more upon his coat-collar.
“Come along, McNason!” it whispered, “We must go now! We’re not wanted here! Come!”