The Song of the Minster 17

the icy pavement. And as he lay there,
taking a cruel joy in the freezing cold and
the torture of his body, he became gradu-
ally aware of a sound of far-away yet most
heavenly music.

He raised himself to his knees to listen,
and to his amazement he perceived that the
whole Minster was pervaded by a faint mys-
terious light, which was every instant grow-
ing brighter and clearer. And as the light
increased the music grew louder and sweeter,
and he knew that it was within the sacred
walls. But it was no mortal minstrelsy.

The strains he heard were the minglings
of angelic instruments, and the cadences of
voices of unearthly loveliness. They seemed
to proceed from the choir about him, and
from the nave and transept and aisles; from
the pictured windows and from the clerestory
and from the vaulted roofs. Under his
knees he felt that the crypt was throbbing
and droning like a huge organ.

Sometimes the song came from one part
of the Minster, and then all the rest of the
vast building was silent; then the music was
taken up, as it were in response, in another

art; and yeta ain voices and instruments
?
2