frescoes on the walls were singing.

On the painted ceiling westward of the tower the verses of the Te Deum,
inscribed in letters of gold above the shields of kings and princes and
barons, were visible in the divine light, and the very words of these
verses were singing, like living things.

And the breath of all these as they sang turned to a smoke as of
incense in the wintry air, and floated about the high pillars of the
Minster.

Suddenly the music ceased, all save the deep organ-drone.

Then Thomas heard the marvellous antiphon repeated in the bitter
darkness outside; and that music, he knew, must be the response of the
galleries of stone kings and queens, of abbots and virgin martyrs, over
the western portals, and of the monstrous gargoyles along the eaves.

When the music ceased in the outer darkness, it was taken up again in
the interior of the Minster.

At last there came one stupendous united cry of all the singers, and in
that cry even the organ-drone of the crypt, and the clamour of the
brute stones of pavement and pillar, of wall and roof, broke into words
articulate. And the words were these:

_Per singulos dies, benedicimus Te._
_Day by day: we magnify Thee,_
_And we worship Thy name: ever world without end._

As the wind of the summer changes into the sorrowful wail of the
yellowing woods, so the strains of joyous worship changed into a wail
of supplication; and as he caught the words, Thomas too raised his
voice in wild entreaty:

_Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri._
_O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us._

And then his senses failed him, and he sank to the ground in a long
swoon.

When he came to himself all was still, and all was dark save for the
little yellow flower of light in the sanctuary lamp.

As he crept back to his cell he saw with unsealed eyes how churlishly
he had grudged God the glory of man's genius and the service of His
dumb creatures, the metal of the hills, and the stone of the quarry,
and the timber of the forest; for now he knew that at all seasons, and
whether men heard the music or not, the ear of God was filled by day
and by night with an everlasting song from each stone of the vast
Minster:

_We magnify Thee,_
_And we worship Thy name: ever world without end._

The Pilgrim of a Night

In the ancient days of faith the doors of the churches used to be
opened with the first glimmer of the dawn in summer, and long