"I beg your pardon," replied Morris Pugh slowly; then the remembrance that he was pastor here as elsewhere made him add, "I was so overcome by the horrible thought that the father of that poor child must have been here--beside us, Merve."
But the lad's face was up again; he looked his brother calmly in the face.
"I suppose he was; but what is the use of bothering about it? The thing's over--" He glanced at the grave as he spoke, and looked back at his brother almost impatiently. "Oh! for God's sake, Morris, let her be--I dare say it--it was a sort of mistake--he mayn't have meant--but anyhow, the thing's done with!
"Done!" echoed Morris; "how can it be done without repentance?"
Mervyn's handsome eyes narrowed, his lip set. "And how do you know he doesn't repent? If the--the baby had lived it might have been worth while; but now--" he smiled suddenly. "Don't worry any more about it, there's a good chap. Mother will be waiting tea for us, and you have all those envelopes to send round this evening."
Morris Pugh winced under the reminder. Yes! tomorrow was Collection Sunday, and each household of the faith must be provided with an envelope addressed to it in which the offering must be enclosed, thus enabling those in authority to trace home any inadequate donation.
Oh! would the time never come to the Church of Christ when the Elect would need no such precautions against cheating their God? For that was what it meant.
His whole soul sickened as he thought of how each one of his flock would weigh the balance between this world and the next. And yet a good collection was the vivifier of spiritual life. Without it, how could extra preachers be paid for, and the religio-social work of the community be kept up?
It was late ere all the arrangements for the morrow, including a reception and prayer-meeting in honour of the Reverend Hwfa Morgan, who was to conduct the morning service, were over; but even then Morris Pugh had not finished his work. That was to wrestle through the night in prayer for Divine Guidance, for Divine Help.
And all the while the slow, certain stars wheeled in their appointed courses to meet the dawn, the dawn that came true to its appointed time.
There was a stir in the village, of course. To begin with, there was the excitement of a new preacher. Would he come up to his reputation?
And would the performance of the village choir be satisfactory? Then, as all the outlying members of the congregation came in from the distant farms early, there was the additional excitement of hearing and giving gossip. As one of the yearly functions, too, Collection Sunday was a festival for fine clothes. Alicia Edwards wore hers, an entirely new get-up which, remembering Myfanwy's look at Mervyn, and having in mind various penny novelettes in which jealousy played the principal part, she had ordered from another shop in Blackborough. For she was becoming reckless. At heart she was an excellent creature, but her education had been against her. She had learnt so much that was absolutely unnecessary for what she wanted to make out of life. What did it matter to her whether she could reel off the names of the claimants to the crown of Spain during the War of Succession? All she really desired was love; sentimental, not overpassionate love. Life without emotion was to her an empty life. Other girls, feeling as restless as she did, might have defied home authority and followed, say, Myfanwy Jones's lead; but she was too dutiful, and in addition she had a reputation to keep up, the reputation of being the best girl in the village. Her father, of whom she was desperately afraid, talked of a Training College for Teachers; she held her peace, and lived feverishly for the moment. That, at any rate, was productive of emotion!
So she put on her finest clothes and went down to meet Mervyn at the chapel door, and greet him with a sprightly challenge and a little quiver of her lip: Not that she was really in love with him. Any other of the stalwart young men, who cultivated the same forehead curl, would have done as well, if he had been attracted by her and called her his darling, and asked her to be his wife; for all her education had left her woman--woman pure and simple.
There was quite a crowd at the chapel door, a general excitement over the thought of the new preacher, though to many a bent old man and worn old woman the great event of the day was in the envelope, safely tucked away in the Bibles they clutched so confidently. For, realising that this might be their last donation, they had given their ransom for the skies. Isaac Edwards fussed round, keeping a watchful eye for the doubtful members of the flock; and the Reverend Hwfa Morgan, a tall young man who might have looked sensual but for his exceeding pallor, spoke to the favoured few, giving them a taste of his fluency.
He was extraordinarily fluent. His periods swept along soundfully and brought forth many encomiums in the brief period between the services, for the evening hour had been put forward to the afternoon in order to allow the outermost outsiders to get home ere dark, and thus have no excuse for absence.
So the westering sun shone full into the bare, whitewashed chapel when Morris Pugh, as a preliminary to his final appeal, stepped forward, and the Reverend Hwfa Morgan stepped back for the moment.
There was the difference of two worlds between their faces. As Morris gave out a well-known Welsh hymn, a little sudden thrill seemed to vibrate in the humanity-burdened air of the packed chapel.
What was it?
The quaint modulations rose and fell in wide compass, now high, now low. Would the Spirit of the Lord speak in a singing voice?
The thought was no new one; it had been in Morris Pugh's mind as he had listened of late to the oft-told tale--which grew in the telling-- of the mysterious music in the church on Trinity Sunday.
But no! The hymn died away to its Amen, and there was no sign. So he began his address.
And then suddenly his eye caught a figure by the door, a figure in black, close veiled. Surely it was Gwen--Gwen the sinner?
And then he spoke again. He had passed the night in prayer; he had eaten nothing; the whole body and soul of him was in deadly earnest.
Whether there was something more than this or not, that in itself has to be reckoned with, especially with an emotional audience.
So, as he spoke of the dead child, an old woman, her face seamed with wrinkles, seemed to feel a half-forgotten tug at her breast and began to weep; an old man, straining with almost sightless eyes for some glimpse which might make the young, flexible, lamenting voice more earthly, less heavenly, followed suit. Then the golden haze which filled the chapel seemed to hold a radiance, and close to the speaker, Alicia Edwards gave a little half-suffocated cry and tore, as if for breath, at the laces round her throat.
And still the insistent, strenuous voice held to its high protesting pitch of passionate reproof. Its cadence was the only sound----
No! What was that?
From the figure by the door a sound--the merest shadow of a sound!
'Just as I am without one plea.'
The Welsh translation of a sinner's joy was familiar, and a thrill, individual yet collective, ran through the chapel as, turning, every one in it saw Gwen, her whole face, sodden with tears, transfigured into angelic light and peace and joy as she sang--
'Save that Thy Blood was shed for me.'
The strenuous man's voice failed suddenly before the exquisite sweetness of the woman's, but only for a moment. A voice less strenuous, yet still a man's, joined in the singing, then another woman's.
So, by ones and twos and threes, the message of certain salvation grew from a whisper to a storm of sound.
'O Lamb of God, I come!'
And then?
Then, while Morris Pugh stood white, trembling, almost appalled, the Reverend Hwfa Morgan sprang forward with a shout of "Hallelujah!"
It swept away the last barrier of reserve. With cries and groans the congregation leapt to its feet or grovelled in the dust.
"Speak to them, man, speak to them, the Spirit is upon you," urged the Reverend Hwfa Morgan, as Morris Pugh still stood, paralysed by the realisation of his prayer.
So he essayed to speak, but the power did not lie with him. It lay in the soft, almost unearthly, harmonies of Gwen's voice, and Mervyn's, and Alicia Edwards, followed by those of many a young man and maiden.
Over and over again some wild Welsh chant pitted itself against prayer or preaching, or even the earnest confession of sin from some sinner, and always with the same result, a victory for the service of song.
Against that soothing background even Time itself seemed lost. The evening drew in wet and stormy. The necessity for closing the chapel doors burdened the pent air still more with man's great need of forgiveness. The miserable ventilation, which sanitation allows to churches and forbids to theatres, made women faint and strong men turn sick, while every now and again a burst of unrestrained laughter or sobbing told of nerves strained to the breaking point.
It was nigh dawn when, by the light of a pale moon obscured by drifting storm-clouds, Morris Pugh turned the key in the chapel door with a trembling hand. The Reverend Hwfa Morgan and Isaac Edwards were waiting for him on the wet, glittering steps.
"That is over," he muttered slowly in Welsh.
"Over!" echoed his brother cleric. "If the Lord will, it has just begun: from it will spread a wave of revival. You and those sweet singers--!" His excitement was too much for him, he reverted to English, "Yes, indeed! We will have a collection----"
Isaac Edwards slapped his thigh with an inarticulate ejaculation.
"Morris Pugh," he said, his voice quivering with regret, "we have forgotten it. God forgive us, we have forgotten the money!"
CHAPTER X