Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/67

 silencing the baby Uriah, who had begun to cry with cold and hunger.

When the stranger had finished, he opened his eyes and looked round him with the empty stare of one who had come back from a great distance. Then the burning eyes rested in turn upon each of the kneeling women, and he murmured, "Arise, my children, and go your ways, telling publicans and sinners ye have found him on whom the Spirit of the Lord is descended. Blessed be he who fills the belly of the Prophet of God."

They went away in silence and in a little while the three women returned bringing with them two boys who carried bags of beans and potatoes, late melons and bread and a quarter of fresh mutton. These they laid beside the fire and then one of the women, a plump and handsome young thing, pulled her shawl more closely over her yellow hair and speaking in a low, timid voice said, "Will you come and preach for us, Reverend? It's been a long spell since we had a good preacher." There was a curious hot excitement in her voice.

When they had gone again the woman on the log looked up at her husband with the strangest expression. In her eyes there was the light of admiration, but the thin mouth curled as if in derision. She was the only woman in the world who knew this man, and she could not bring herself to leave him.

He stayed and preached. His wife played for the services on a melodion which they carried in the