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?©, 1861-1896

"The Social Cancer"



CHAPTER XV
The Sacristans

The thunder resounded, roar following close upon roar, each preceded'
by a blinding flash of zigzag lightning, so that it might have been
said that God was writing his name in fire and that the eternal
arch of heaven was trembling with fear. The rain, whipped about in
a different direction each moment by the mournfully whistling wind,
fell in torrents. With a voice full of fear the bells sounded their
sad supplication, and in the brief pauses between the roars of the
unchained elements tolled forth sorrowful peals, like plaintive groans.
On the second floor of the church tower were the two boys whom we saw
talking to the Sage. The younger, a child of seven years with large
black eyes and a timid countenance, was huddling close to his brother,
a boy of ten, whom he greatly resembled in features, except that the
look on the elder's face was deeper and firmer.
Both were meanly dressed in clothes full of rents and patches. They sat
upon a block of wood, each holding the end of a rope which extended
upward and was lost amid the shadows above.


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