ew together, and like a constellation glimmered crownlike
on the brow of the night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to
hoist.

Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stellular coronal, as
it shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its
mystic glamour,--disintegrated by gradual approach he could see the long
handles of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and
yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun-tinted smoke that
rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them,
all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence
that he was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being stuick
downward into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the
ropes, for he was almost frozen. He was hardly apt enough to interpret
this as an emotion too deep for words, but now and again, as he was
disentangled, he felt about his shoulders a furtive hug, and more than
one pair of the ministering hands must needs pause to wring his own
hands hard. They practically carried him to a fire that had been built
in a sheltered place in one of those grottoes of the region, locally
called "Rock-houses." Its cavernous portal gave upon a dark interior,
and not until they had turned a corner in a tunnel-like passage was
revealed an arched space in a rayonnant suffusion of light, the fire
itself obscured by the figures about it. His eyes were caught first by
the aspect of a youthful mother with a golden-haired babe on her breast;
close by showed the head and horns of a cow; the mule was mercifully
sheltered too, and stood near, munching his fodder; a cluster of
sheep pressed after the steps of half a dozen men, that somehow in the
clare-obscure reminded him of the shepherds of old summoned by good
tidings of great joy.

A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal
beard.

"Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?" the
old circuit-rider straitly demanded. "How could ye hev strengthened yer
heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily
within ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my
brethern, ye hev done it unto me."

"That ain't the _kind_ o' sign, parson," Kennedy faltered. "I be lookin'
fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or hear."

"The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom," said the parson
solemnly. "The kingd