"I have just seen an angel pass—to enter—yonder." A sob closed his throat as he pointed to the sky.
"Her pure blood is on my hands—and, by the help of God, they will shed no more.
"These old guns are playthings—we are broken old men.
"Let us pray."
And there, out in the glare of the awful fiery spectacle, grown weird in the faint white light of a rising sun, arose the voice of prayer—prayer first for forgiveness of false pride and folly—for the women and children—- for the end of the war—for lasting peace.
It was a scene to be remembered. Had anything been lacking in its awful solemnity, it was supplied with a tender potency reaching all hearts, in the knowledge of the dead child, who lay in the little cottage near.
From up and down the levee, as far as the voice had reached, came fervent responses, "Amen!" and "Amen!"
Late in the morning the Riffraffs' artillery, all but their largest gun, was, by the captain's command, dumped into the river.
This reserved cannon they planted, mouth upwards, by the roadside on the site of the tragedy—a fitting memorial of the child-martyr.
It was Mrs. Magwire, who, remembering how Idyl had often stolen out and hung a lantern at this dark turn of the "road bend," began thrusting a pine torch into the cannon's mouth on dark nights as a slight memorial of her. And those who noticed said she took her rosary there and said her beads.