The Sheep-Stealers

by Violet Jacob

But, in spite of this, the room contained hardly more than thirty people, as the thickness of the fog had made it very difficult for those at a distance to push their way through the heavy darkness. As a result it followed that the whole congregation was made up of really earnest persons, and the preacher found himself so much in accord with it that he was stirred to the depths by the moral support he felt in the very air around. He threw his keen glance over the figures before him, over the rough coats, heavy boots, and the hands clasped together or resting open in the lassitude of physical weariness. To him they were the little remnant saved from the burning, out of the many who dwelt in bondage round them. He was a narrow man, zealous, untiring, faithful in the least as in the greatest, sparing neither himself nor others. He had walked many miles that day and he was to set out before sunrise on the following morning for a far-off place, holding a meeting half-way to his destination and preaching again in the barn which would also be his shelter at night. It was no wonder if his influence was great, for he possessed that which could drive his own soul and body forward through physical as through mental struggle, through hunger and cold, through fatigue and pain. He had the courage of a lion and it shone out of the eyes in his small, fierce face. It was the mighty heart in the little body, the little man and the big odds, the thing which, through all time, will hold and keep and fascinate humanity while there is an ounce of blood or nerve left in it.

The hands of the large, eight-day clock which stood with its back to the wall were on their way from eleven to midnight, holding on their course with a measured tick that had neither haste nor delay. It was the only sound which seemed to have courage to defy the preacher’s voice, and it appeared to impress him in some way, for he glanced towards it now and again during his reading and the prayers he offered. Anne sat stiff and still in her place, and Nannie, who was weary with the day’s work and the unwonted vigil, began to nod. He prayed on and on.

It was a quarter to twelve when he rose from his knees to begin his sermon, and those whose flesh was weaker than their spirit and whose heads had begun to droop roused themselves as he stood up.

He took his theme from the parable of the rich man who pulled down his barns and built greater, saying to his soul, “Eat, drink, thou hast much goods laid up for many years,” and whose soul was required of him that night. As he dwelt on the folly of looking forward, the danger of spiritual delay, and the remorseless flight of the time which should be spent in preparing for eternity, every face was turned towards him, and even Nannie felt her attention compelled by his words and by the force which poured from his vehement spirit. The eagerness of his expression was almost grotesque as he leaned forward calling upon his hearers to forsake their sins and to repent while there was yet time, while the day of Grace yet lasted.

“You are on the verge of another year,” he began when he had read out the parable, “and your feet are drawing nigh to the shores of eternity. Are you ready—you, and you, and you—to face that change that waits you? Can you meet the Messenger who may be in the middle of your road as you return to your homes this very night? There can be no looking back, no halting when the summons comes, as come it will, no changing of a past that is the test by which you will stand or fall. Every day that you live is an account sealed, a leaf turned over for ever, a thing no one can take back. What is your account in the past?”

He stopped and wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief. The clock warned, and the hands pointed to a few minutes before the hour. The preacher looked towards it.

“And, as you sit here,” he cried, “the Old Year is dragging out its last moments and the New Year is coming up—even now we can hear its footsteps drawing closer and closer——”

He paused, holding up his hand as though to convey to his hearers’ minds the picture that he saw in his own. And, in the pause, it began to be actually plain to their bodily senses.

There was a dead silence and they sat holding their breath, rooted in their places, for the sound of an approaching tread was surely coming up the passage.