"Be comforted! for ye are the children of the Lord!
"Be glad! be glad! for the Angel of the Lord is here!
"Don't you see him? don't you see him? There! there!" he cried, pointing, with an earnestness and radiance of look which filled all who saw him with astonishment. They turned to gaze, as if really expecting to behold the vision; then fixed their eyes again on the stranger.
"You'll be taken care of, the Angel says. Even they that hate you shall do you good. The mercy you have shown, Christ will show to you."
Having uttered these sentences at intervals, in a loud voice, the speaker gave a start, turned as if bewildered, and sat down again.
Not a word was spoken. A hush of awe suspended the breath of the listeners. Then a smile of fervent emotion lighted up like daybreak the negro's dark visage, and his joy broke forth in song. The others joined him, filling the house with the jubilee of their wild and mellow voices.
"A poor wayfaring man of grief
Hath often crossed me on my way,
And sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer nay."
And so the fair fame of Gingerford, as we said before, was saved from blight. The beggar-boy awakes this Sunday morning, not in the blaze of Eternity, but in that dim nook of the domain of Time, Nigger Williams's hut. He made his couch, not on the freezing ground, but in a bunk of the low-roofed garret. His steaming clothes had been taken off, a dry shirt had been given him, and he had Joe for a bedfellow.
"Hug him tight, Joey dear!" said the old woman, as she carried away the candle. "Snug up close, and keep him warm!"
"I will!" cried Joe, as affectionate as he was roguish; and Fessenden's never slept better than he did that night, with the tempest singing his lullaby, and the arms of the loving negro boy about him.