And how different an audience from the old London one.Every one had come on this occasion to see a show, and it was certainly a show that they were going to see.Maggie had entered during a pause, and all the faces that were there wore that look of expectation that demands the rising of the curtain.Soon, Maggie felt, they would stamp and whistle did the play not begin.
Thurston rose and announced:
"My brothers, we will sing hymn No.14 on the paper."Maggie looked and discovered that it was the hymn that had once moved her so dramatically in London with the words By all Thy sores and bloody pain Come down and heal our sins again.
and with the last refrain:
By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee.
Already, in spite of herself, in spite of her consciousness of the melodrama and meretricious glitter of the scene, her heart was beating.She was more deeply moved, even now, than she had ever been by all the services of the Skeaton Church.
And Thurston had learnt his job by this time.Softly one of the violins played the tune.Then Thurston said:
"The first verse of this hymn will be sung by the choir alone.The congregation is asked to stand and then to join in the second verse.
The fourth verse will be sung by the soloist."The audience rose.There was a hush of expectation throughout the building.The choir, to the accompaniment of the fiddlers alone, sang the first verse.They had been well selected and trained.
Thurston obviously spared no expense.For the second verse, the whole orchestra combined, the drum booming through the refrain.At first the congregation was timid, but the tune was simple and attractive.The third verse was sung by every one, and Maggie found herself, almost against her will, joining in.At the fourth verse there was again the hush of expectation, then a soprano, thin and clear, accompanied again by one violin, broke the silence.
There was no doubt that this was very moving.Men and women sat down at the hymn's close quite visibly affected.
Thurston got up then and read a lesson from the Bible.He read from the Revelations:
"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.""And immediately I was in the Spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.""And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone:
and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.And round about the throne were four and twenty seats:
and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold."Thurston had worked hard during these last years, he had immensely improved his accent, and his h's were all in their right places.He read very dramatically, dropping his voice to a whisper, then pausing and staring in front of him as though he saw God only a few yards away.The people of Skeaton had had few opportunities of any first-class dramatic entertainment.When Thurston finished there passed through the building a wave of excitement, a stir, a faint murmur.An old woman next to Maggie wiped her eyes."Lovely!" Maggie heard her whisper."Lovely!"They sang, then, another hymn, accompanied by the orchestra.This was a dramatic hymn with a fiery martial tune:
The Lord of War He cometh down With Sword and Shield and Armour Bright, His armies all behind him Frown, Who can withstand His Light?
Chorus.Trumpets Blare, The drum-taps Roll, Prepare to meet Thy God, Oh Soul! Prepare! Prepare! Prepare to meet Thy God, oh Soul!
Never before had the men and women of Skeaton heard such hymns.The Revival of ten years ago, lacking the vibrant spirit of Mr.John Thurston, had been a very different affair.This was something quite new in all Skeaton experience.Red-hot expectation flamed now in every eye.Maggie could feel that the old woman next to her was trembling all over.
Thurston announced:
"Brother Crashaw will now deliver an address."Brother Crashaw, his head still lowered, very slowly got up from his seat.He moved as though it were only with the utmost difficulty and power of self-will that his reluctant body could be compelled into action.He crept rather than walked from his chair to the reading-desk, then very very painfully climbed on to the high platform.
Maggie, watching him, remembered that earlier time when he had climbed into just such another desk.She remembered also that day at her aunts' house when he had flirted with Caroline and shown himself quite another Brother Crashaw.He had aged greatly since then.He seemed now to be scarcely a man at all.Then suddenly, with a jerk, as though a string had been pulled from behind, he raised his face and looked at them all.Yes, that was alive.Monkey's mask you might call it, but the eyes behind the yellow lids flamed and blazed.No exaggeration those words.A veritable fire burned there, a fire, it might be, of mere physical irritation and savage exasperation at the too-rapid crumbling of the wilfully disobedient body, a glory, perhaps, of obstinate pride and conceit, a fire of superstition and crass ignorance, but a fire to be doubted of no man who looked upon it.
When he spoke his voice was harsher, angrier, more insulting than it had been before.He spoke, too, in a hurry, tumbling his words one upon another as though he were afraid that he had little mortal time left to him and must make the most of what he had got.
From the first he was angry, rating the men of Skeaton as they had never been rated before.And they liked it.They even revelled in it; it did them no harm and at the same time tickled their skins.