“What is it, father, what is it?” whispered Edith, fearfully. She thought him some unhappy lunatic escaped from confinement.
But the passers-by showed no signs of terror; they looked at him with compassionate eyes; they uttered ejaculations of prayer, strange to hear in that public place and time. The unhappy wanderer rushed on, uttering his sharp, monotonous cry: “Oh! the great and terrible God!” and men looked on in solemn quietness, not marveling. The healthful blood ran cold in the young veins of Edith Field. What cries were these for the streets of a mighty city!
They proceeded on—so many deserted houses frowning dark with their closed doors and windows upon the life around—so many signs of panic and terror, from wild apprehensions of God’s wondrous vengeance, like that of the maniac who had passed them, to the helpless, tremulous anxiety of those serving maids and laboring men who crowded about the apothecary’s door—combined to throw a cold blight of despondency upon the strangers. Up in the clear sky before them, Edith’s eye had been caught by the glorious golden hue of a singular cloud. The heavens were flooded with the light of the setting sun; in beautiful relief against the blue sky, the cloud turned forth its mellow roundness to the gentle summer breeze, gliding onward stately and slow, as you may see a full sail sometimes on the verge of the far horizon, with the sunshine in its bosom. As Edith observed it, they came up to a knot of people gathered in the middle of the street.
“Lo!” exclaimed a female voice, “how he stretches forth his sword, and his eyes like fire gazing over the city—and his face terrible, and yet so fair—and his garments like a wondrous mist, with the sunshine below! Ah! sirs, do ye not see him? Lo! now he bends to the east and to the west, with his sword gleaming like a diamond stone, awful to see! Can ye not see him?—can ye not see him? or hath his glory blinded your eyes?”
She was gazing up with passionate earnestness at the cloud as it floated above.
“Yea, yea, yonder is the flashing of his sword over St. Paul’s!” cried a man beside her.
“I see him! I see him!” said another; “what a glorious creature he is!”
A thin, mild, contemplative man, on whose lip a habitual smile of gentle pensiveness seemed to hover, stood on the outskirts of the crowd, looking up with serene blue eyes, toward this wondrous object in the heavens.
“Dost see him, sir?” exclaimed the first speaker, jealous, as it seemed, of the gentle smile. “Dost see the angel?”
“Nay, truly, good neighbor,” said the meditative man, “I see but a singular fair cloud.”