Earlier in the evening she and her man had quarrelled. He was drunk, as usual, and had struck her, but for some unaccountable reason she had not screeched and struck back and tried to claw his face. She had simply grabbed her old shawl and escaped into the street, where she had wandered about for an hour. It was very odd that she had acted thus, and now she was shamefaced about asking Red Mike for a drink of whiskey! He got all their meagre earnings, anyway, did Red Mike, and he was usually easy enough about donating a dram or two when they were down in their luck, and heretofore she had n’t minded asking him. And if he chanced to refuse, she eased her mind by a good mouthful of curses, which she spat at him like a cat. But tonight she was foolishly squeamish about asking him; she feared the loafers about the bar would jeer at her if he refused; her face pained her where Con’s blow had fallen, and she was cold and shivering, and—well, she was losing her nerve. So she turned away from the hot glow of the bar-room door and passed on into the mists of the street.
As she crawled along there came to her ears a quick thud of a drum-beat and the sound of men and women’s voices singing. Marching through the gloom they came, a flapping banner above their heads, the red shirts of the men and the blue, scarlet-banded bonnets of the women lending for a moment a patch of color to the dim dinginess of the street. Suddenly they paused and fell upon their knees in the road, while a man’s voice wailed out a prayer. Time was when Myrtle Street gibed at the Salvationists and threw rocks at them and hustled them about. But that was when the red shirts and the flapping banner were something new. The newness was gone now, and Myrtle Street merely shuffled indifferently past, and the beat of the big drum, the strident voices of the exhorters were quite as much a part of the night sounds of the place as the bawling of the showman or the chatter of the frowsy girls. The woman, shivering under her shawl and fondling her bruised cheek, glanced apathetically at the kneeling men and women, when quickly her eyes became fixed upon the face of one of them whom she knew. It was Maggie, the girl who once occupied a dark little hole of a room next her own in the big tenement house where she yet lived. Maggie! a forlorn, starving thing of whom she had lost track entirely—in truth, she had not thought of her since the day when the poor, sniveling, pale-faced creature had been turned into the street for not paying her rent. Myrtle Street does not waste much time in tracing the whereabouts of unfortunate acquaintances, nor in thinking of them after they drift out of sight under the ever-mounting wave of disaster which laps hungrily thereabout. But Maggie in a big bonnet, with her eyes closed and kneeling in the mud, was enough to arouse Myrtle Street’s benumbed curiosity. So the bedraggled woman on the sidewalk pressed quite close to the curb and stared at her, wondering vaguely at the transformation. The man ended his prayer, and his companions, rising to their feet, began to sing again. The woman on the curb took no heed of the words which they sang. She was not for some moments vividly conscious of the song at all; she was conscious only of being tired and cold. Her curiosity regarding Maggie was dying, and she loitered with the little group which huddled upon the curb, simply because she had nowhere else to go. But as she stood there in the mist with her sunken eyes staring vacantly into the night, the music which touched her ears began to affect her oddly. It was a curious, wailing melody, with a barbaric accompaniment of jingling tambourines, and as its monotonous, insistent swing beat the air a strange feeling of awakening began to stir her dull veins. She weaved to and fro a little in unison with the measure of the song. She closed her eyes and felt a tightening in her throat. She clutched her shawl. She felt a wild desire to cry out or sob. Suddenly they ceased to sing, and she opened her eyes with a start. Maggie stepped into the little semi-circle of men and women, and in high, hard tones began to speak.
“Oh! Those is great, great words, my friends, which we have just sung,” she said; “awful words! Terrifyin’ words! Did you hear ‘em? Did you understand ‘em? Did they come home to you?
“‘When the King comes in,
Like lightning’s flash will that instant show
Things hidden long from friend and foe.
Just what he is will each one know,
When the King comes in.’
“Think of it! Think of it! Like a flash will it be, and you will know and I will know—everybody will know just what we are. Oh! It is awful! Like lightning’s flash will that coming be—remember that! Don’t try to believe it is far off. It isn’t. It may be to-night. It may be within an hour—a minute—a second, for you and me. But be it near or far, it’s coming, coming, coming!” Her voice shrilled piercingly, and the woman, listening so intently upon the curb, felt a thrill of excitement at the sound. It was not clear to her what it all meant, but she had a queer feeling of awe as she looked at Maggie’s drawn face and listened to her strained, sharp voice. “My God!” the girl continued, “think of it! Think if He comes to-night and finds you in all your sin and wickedness and filth. Think, think and be afraid. Think, and before it’s too late, get saved! I am saved, and I thank God to-night for it!”
A low chorus of “Glory to God!”