CHAPTER X.


Principal Trenholme had been gone from Chellaston a day or two on
business. When he returned one evening, he got into his smart little
sleigh which was in waiting at the railway station, and was driving
himself home, when his attention was arrested and his way blocked by a
crowd in front of the hotel. He did not force a way for his horse, but
drew up, listening and looking. It was a curious picture. The wide
street of snow and the houses were dusky with night, except where light
chanced to glow in doorways and windows. The collection of people was
motley. Above, all the sky seemed brought into insistent notice as a
roof or covering, partly because pale pink streamers of flickering
northern light were passing over it, partly because the leader of the
crowd, an old man, by looking upwards, drew the gaze of all to follow
whither his had gone.

Trenholme heard his loud voice calling: "Behold He shall come again, and
every eye shall look on Him Whom they have pierced. Blessed are those
servants whom their Lord when He cometh shall find watching."

The scene was foreign to life in Chellaston. Trenholme, who had no mind
to stand on the skirts of the crowd, thrust his reins into the hand of
his rustic groom, and went up the broad steps of the hotel, knowing that
he would there have his inquiries most quickly answered.

In the bar-room about thirty men were crowded about the windows, looking
at the preacher, not listening, for the double glass, shut out the