Chapter 10

AT HER GATES

We shape ourselves the joy or tear,
Of which the coming life is made;
And fill our future atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.

It was just at the edge of the dark when John left his mother. He had
perhaps been strengthened by her counsel, but he had not been comforted.
In Hatton market-place he saw a large gathering of men and women and
heard Greenwood in a passionate tone talking to them. Very soon a voice,
almost equally powerful, started what appeared to be a hymn, and John
rode closer to the crowd and listened.

"The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand,
His storms roll up the sky;
The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold,
The dreamers toss and sigh.
The night is darkest before the morn,
When the pain is sorest the child is born,
And the Day of the Lord is at hand.

"Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell,
Famine, and Plague, and War,
Idleness, Bigotry, Cant and Misrule,
Gather, and fall in the snare.
Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave,
Crawl to the battlefield, sneak to your grave,
In the Day of the Lord at hand."

John did not hear Greenwood's voice among the singers, but at the close
of the second verse it rose above all others. "Lads and lasses of the
chapel singing-pew," he cried, "we will better that kind of stuff. Sing
up to the tune of Olivet," and to this majestic melody he started in a
clarion-like voice Toplady's splendid hymn,

"Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain,
Thousand, thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of his train.
Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign."

The words were as familiar as their mother tongue, and Greenwood's
authoritative voice in chapel, mill, and trade meetings, was quite as
intimate and potential. They answered his request almost as
automatically as the looms answered the signal for their movement or
stoppage; for music quickly fires a Yorkshire heart and a hymn led by
Jonathan Greenwood was a temptation no man or woman present could
resist. Very soon he gave them the word "_Home_," and they scattered in
every direction, singing the last verse. Then Greenwood's voice rose
higher and higher, jubilant, triumphant in its closing lines,

"Yea, amen! Let all adore Thee,
High on thy eternal throne;
Saviour, take the power and glory,
Claim the kingdom for thine own.
Jah Jehovah!
Everlasting God come down."

Greenwood's joyful enthusiasm was more than John could encounter at that
hour. He did not stop to speak with him, but rode swiftly home. He saw
and felt the brooding trouble and knew the question of more wage and
shorter