very white hair falling over his shoulders, which was the more
conspicuous from the black velvet cap, as it appeared, that he wore,
and the close-fitting suit of pure black in which he was dressed, and
which seemed to Nathan almost to glisten and flash as the old man
tripped along. He had hardly begun to speculate as to who the stranger
could be, when he beheld him turn in between the posts by the path
that leads to the church, tread lightly over the snow, and up the
steps, and knock hastily and vigorously at the church-door. But half
recovered from his wonder, he was just raising his voice to utter a
remonstrance, when, to his sevenfold amazement, the door was opened to
the knock, and the old man disappeared within.

It was not without a creeping feeling of awe, mingled with his
astonishment, that Nathan gazed upon the door through which this
silent figure had vanished. But he was not easily to be daunted. He
did not care to follow the steps of the stranger into the church; but
he remembered a shed so placed against the building, near the farther
end, that he had often, when a child, at some peril indeed, climbed
upon its top, and looked into the church through a little window at
one side of the pulpit. For this he started; but he did not fail to
run across the square and leap over the church-gate at the top of his
speed, in order to gather warmth and courage for the attempt.

When Nathan Stoddard climbed upon the old shed and pressed his face
against the glass of the little church-window, he had at first only a
confused impression of many lamps and many figures in all parts of the
church. But as his vision grew more clear, he beheld a sight which
could not amaze him less than the apparition that startled Tam o'
Shanter as he glared through the darkness into the old Kirk of
Alloway. The great chandelier of the church was partly lighted, and