Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/539

 gation was completely ended. Reactions began immediately to occur.

Far up in the gallery a woman laughed, an excited, hysterical, brainless laugh, and every eye darted upon her in reproach. Then down in front somewhere near the first line of the Burbeck adherents, a man began to sob, hoarsely and with a wailing note, as if in utter despair. Again every eye swung from the woman who had laughed to the man who was crying. As they fell on him, he stood up. It was Elder Brooks, the man who had written the resolution declaring the pastoral relation severed. With streaming eyes he was hurrying toward Hampstead. But now other women were laughing hysterically, other men were sobbing. Everywhere was exclamation, movement, and a sudden impulse toward the minister. The people in the gallery came down, crowding dangerously, to the rail. On the main floor little rivulets of excited human beings trickled out from the pews and streamed down the aisles. The first to reach Hampstead was a woman. She caught his hand and kissed it. Elder Brooks came next. He flung an arm about the minister's neck, but instead of looking at him or addressing him, covered his face in shame.

But it was no longer possible to describe what any one individual was doing. The entire audience had become a sea which at first rolled toward Hampstead and then swirled and tossed its individual waves laughing, cheering or applauding frothily. In mutual congratulation men shook each other's hands and some appeared even to shake their own hands. Women kissed or flung their arms about one another. Two thirds of the main floor was devoid entirely of people. The other third was a struggling eddy in which the tall form of the ex-pastor,—for they had just voted him out of the pulpit,—stood receiving every one who reached him with a sad kind of graciousness.