The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1878-02-09
SAVED BY A SONG.

1t was Christmas eve. A cold, old
fashioned Christmas, with snow living
thick on the ground and still falling
heavily, with touch of fog in the air.
1t was past ten O'Clock, and the streets
and lanes of the great city were all but
deserted Merchant and broker, clerk
and wQrehouseman, and the rest of the
busy crowd who had thronged those
streets by day had one by one drifted
away to their homes, and the lofty ware
houses doomed black and forbidding over
the silent thoroughfares. Here and there
the CLEAN from a solitary window strug-
gled Intellectually with the outer dark
ness, and served but to bring into
relief the general gloom and solitude.
And nowhere were the shadows deeper
or the sense of desolation more profound
than in St. Winifred's Court. St. Wini-
fred's is one of those queer little alleys
which inter5ect the heart of Eastern
London, and consists, with one excep-
ton, of houses let out as Offices and
utterly deserted at night. The court is
bounded on one side by st. Winifreds
church, while in one corner stands
quaint old house, occupying a nearly
triangular piece of ground and forming
the exception we have referred to, hay-
ing been for many years the residence of
st. Winifreds organist, Michael Fray.
Many of these ancient churches still
remain in odd hooks and corners of the
city; relics of a time when London mer-
chants made their homes in the same
spot wherein they earned their daily
bread, worshipping on Sunday in these
narrow aisles, and when their time came
asking no better resting place than be-
meath those venerable fag-stones on
which they had knelt in life The liber-
ality of ancient founders and benefac-
tors has left many of these old churches
richly endowed, and still, Sunday after
Sunday, pastor and curate mount their
respective desks and struggle through
their respective tasks; but portly alder
men and dlgnltied ourgesses no longer
I'LL the high-backed pews. A wheezy
Verger and pew-opener, with a dozen or
so OF ancient men and women, care-tak-
ers OF adjoining warehouses and offices,
too often form the only congregation.
st. Winifred's like many of its sister
editices, though small in extent, is a
noble monument of ecclesiastical archi-
lecture, having been designed by an
architect Of worldwide fame. and boast
ing stained-glass windows of richest
color and exquisite design, and oaken
carvings of flower and leaf, to which the
touch OF master has impaired all Tut
living beauty. The western extremity
OF the church abuts upon a narrow lane,
on week day one of the busiest in the
city; but on Sunday the broad portal is
fung open in vain, for its invitation is
addressed TO empty streets and deserted
houses
The only sign of life, on this Christ
mas eve, in St. Winifred's court, was a
faint CLEAN of Pickering freight pro-
ceeding from one of the windows of the
quaint three-cornered house in which
Michael Fray passed his solitary exist
ence. Many years before the period of
our story, the same month had taken
from him wife and child, and since that
time Michael Fray had lived desolate
hls only Solace being the rare old ORGAN
the friend and companion of his lonely
hours. The loss of his wife and daugb
ter had left him without kith or kin. His
father and mother had died in
his early youth; an only brother. a
gifted but hayward youth, had in early
life ran away to sea, and had there found
Watery grave. Beng thus left alone in
the world, Michael Trays love for music,
which had always been the most marked
feature of his character, had become in
tensitied into absolute passion. Evening
after evening, when darkness had settled
on the city, and none could complain
that his music interfered with business,
or distracted the attention from the
nobler clink of gold, he was accustomed
TO creep quietly into the church and
there talk to himself" as he called it,
at the old organ, which answered him
back again with tender sympathy and
power of consolation which no mere
human listener could ever have afforded. !
The organ of st. Winifred's was of com
paratively small size, and made but
scanty show of pipes or pedals; but the
blackened case and yellow, much-worn