CHAPTER XXVII.
A STRICKEN CITY.
It was not really until business time next morning, that London, that the whole country, really fully awoke to the fact of the great event of the previous night. Suburbans, in many cases, only heard the strange news on their arrival at their particular railway stations. Even then, a hundred rumours were the order of the moment. Everything reported was vague and shadowy. There were a few rank unbelievers of the garbled stories of the translation, who laughed sceptically, then began to grumble at the strange disorganization of the Railway traffic.
More than one annoyed, belated traveller, remarked in similar terms to the utterance of a commercial traveller, at Surbiton station:—
“If there is any actual truth in this story of the secret translation of a number of religious people, then the mysterious taking away of so many signal-men, and engine-men, will be an eye-opener to the travelling public, who never, somehow, suppose that Christianity is a strong factor in the lives of railway men.”
“It is a revelation in another way,” remarked a second, “since it suggests why we have hitherto had so few railway accidents, compared with other nations.”
The tens and hundreds of thousands, the millions, poured into London as usual. But the snap had gone out of most of them. A horrible sense of foreboding, was upon the spirits of the travellers. As the newspapers more fully confirmed the news, London approached perilously near the verge of a general panic.
The newspapers were bought up with phenomenal eagerness. “Souf Efriken War worn’t in it, fur clearin’ out peepers!” a street seller remarked.
But few of the morning papers, (except the “Courier”) had anything special to say on the great event. Most of them, in fact, were absolutely silent.
There were weather prophecies, political prophecies, financial prophecies, social prophecies, sporting prophecies, commercial prophecies,—but no prophecy of the Coming of the Christ.
The “Courier’s” rival had a brief note to the effect:—