They turned to gaze, as if really expecting
to behold the vision; then fixed their eyes again on the stranger.
"You'll be taken care of, the Angel says. Even they that hate you shall
do you good. The mercy you have shown, Christ will show to you."
Having uttered these sentences at intervals, in a loud voice, the
speaker gave a start, turned as if bewildered, and sat down again.
Not a word was spoken. A hush of awe suspended the breath of the
listeners. Then a smile of fervent emotion lighted up like daybreak the
negro's dark visage, and his joy broke forth in song. The others joined
him, filling the house with the jubilee of their wild and mellow voices.
"A poor wayfaring man of grief
Hath often crossed me on my way,
And sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer nay."
And so the fair fame of Gingerford, as we said before, was saved from
blight. The beggar-boy awakes this Sunday morning, not in the blaze of
Eternity, but in that dim nook of the domain of Time, Nigger Williams's
hut. He made his couch, not on the freezing ground, but in a bunk of the
low-roofed garret.
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