thin children, children clinging-to-mother's-skirts, children running in and out, like mice, between legs and trousers, children riding on father's shoulder, children sticky with sweets and sucking their thumbs, children screaming with pleasure, shrieking with terror, howling with weariness—and one child all by itself on the steps of the town hall, curled up and fast asleep.
Away, to one side of the place, just as he had been there fifteen years ago when Maradick had been present, was a preacher, aloft on an overturned box, singing with hand raised, his thin earnest face illumined with the lights, his scant hair blowing in the breeze. Around him a thin scattering of people singing just as fifteen years ago they had sung:
So like little candles
We shall shine,
You in your small corner
And I in mine.
The same recipé, the same cure, the same key offered to the unlocking of the same mysterious door —and so it will be to the end of created life—Amen!
The hymn was over. The preacher's voice was raised. Children step to the edge of the circle, looking up with wondering eyes, their fingers in their mouths.
"And so, dear friends, we have offered to us here the Blood of the Lamb for our salvation. Can
