On Christmas Day In The Evening | Page 8

aged
minister. "Well--well--that is thoughtful of William Sewall. I don't
suppose Elder Blake has taken part in a service in fifteen years--twenty,
maybe. He used to be a great preacher, too, in his day. I used to listen
to him, when I was a young man, and think he could put things in about
as interesting a way as any preacher I ever heard. Good man, too, he
was--and is. But nobody's thought of asking him to make a prayer in
public since--I don't know when. --Well, well--look at the people going
in! I guess we'd better be getting right along to our seats, or there won't
be any left."

VII
The organ was playing--very softly. Carolyn was a skilful manipulator
of keyboards, and she had discovered that by carefully refraining from
the use of certain keys--discreetly marked by postage stamps--she could
produce a not unmusical effect of subdued harmony. This
unquestionably added very much to the impression of a churchly
atmosphere, carried out to the eye by the Christmas wreathing and
twining of the heavy ropes of shining laurel leaves, and by the massing
of the whole pulpit-front in the soft, dark green of hemlock boughs and
holly. To the people who entered the house with vivid memories of the
burning July day when words hardly less burning had seemed to scorch
the barren walls, this lamp-lit interior, clothed with the garments of the
woods and fragrant with their breath, seemed a place so different that it
could hardly be the same.
But the faces were the same--the faces. And George Tomlinson did not
look at Asa Fraser, though he passed him in the aisle, beard to beard.
Miss Jane Pollock stared hard at the back of Mrs. Maria Hill's bonnet,
in the pew in front of her, but when Mrs. Hill turned about to glance up
at the organ-loft, to discover who was there, Miss Pollock's face
became as adamant, and her eyes remained fixed on her folded hands
until Mrs. Hill had twisted about again, and there was no danger of
their glances encountering. All over the church, likewise, were people
who avoided seeing each other, though conscious, all down their rigid
backbones, that those with whom they had fallen out on that unhappy
July day were present.
There was no vestry in the old meeting-house; no retiring place of any
sort where the presiding minister might stay until the moment came for
him to make his quiet and impressive entrance through a softly opening
pulpit door. So when the Reverend William Sewall of St. John's, of the
neighbouring city, came into the North Estabrook sanctuary, it was as
his congregation had entered, through the front door and up the aisle.
There was a turning of heads to see him come, but there was a staring
of eyes, indeed, when it was seen by whom he was accompanied. The
erect figure of the young man, in his unexceptionable attire, walked

slowly, to keep pace with the feeble footsteps of the very old man in his
threadbare garments of the cut of half a century ago, and the sight of
the two together was one of the most strangely touching things that had
ever met the eyes of the people of North Estabrook. It may be said,
therefore, that from that first moment there was an unexpected and
unreckoned-with influence abroad in the place.
Now, to the subdued notes of the organ, which had been occupied with
one theme, built upon with varying harmonies but ever
appearing--though perhaps no ear but a trained one would have
recognized it through the veil--was added the breath of voices. It was
only an old Christmas carol, the music that of a German folk song, but
dear to generations of Christmas singers everywhere. The North
Estabrook people recognized it--yet did not recognize it. They had
never heard it sung like that before.
"Holy night! peaceful night! All is dark, save the light Yonder where
they sweet vigils keep O'er the Babe, who in silent sleep Rests in
heavenly peace."
It was the presence of Margaret Sewall Fernald which had made it
possible to attempt music at this service--the music which it seemed
impossible to do without. Her voice was one of rare beauty, her
leadership that of training. Her husband, Guy, possessed a reliable, if
uncultivated, bass. Edson had sung a fair tenor in his college glee-club.
By the use of all her arts of persuasion Nan had provided an alto singer,
from the ranks of the choir which had once occupied this
organ-loft--the daughter of Asa Fraser. Whether the quartette thus
formed would have passed muster--as a quartette--with the
choir-master of St. John's, may have been a question, but it is certain
the music they produced was so far above that which the