They never went to knock at his
door, or call to know if he were inside and would speak to them.
And all the time there he was sitting sorrowful, listening and
listening for some little hand to come knocking, and some little
voice to come gently calling through the keyhole; for sorely did
he long to take them to his bosom and give them everything. Only
if he did that without their coming to him, they would not care
for his love or him, would only care for the things he gave them,
and soon would come to hate their brothers and sisters, and turn
their own souls into hells, and the earth into a charnel of murder.
Ere he ended he was pleading with the charwoman to seek her father
in his own room, tell him her troubles, do what he told her, and
fear nothing. And while he spoke, lo! the dragon slug had vanished;
the ugly chapel was no longer the den of the hideous monster; it
was but the dusky bottom of a glory shaft, adown which gazed the
stars of the coming resurrection.
"The whole trouble is that we won't let God help us," said the
preacher, and sat down.
A prayer from the greengrocer followed, in which he did seem to
be feeling after God a little; and then the ironmonger pronounced
the benediction, and all went--among the rest, Frederick Marshal,
who had followed the schoolmaster, and now walked back with him
to his father's, where he was to spend one night more.
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