Sharp County record., 1879-02-06
SAVED BY A SONG.
A Story for Christmas.
From London Society.l

fashioned Christmas, with snow lying
thick on the ground and still falling
heavily, with touch of fog in the air
1t was past 10 O'Clock, and the streets
and lanes of the great city were all but
deserted. Merchant and broker, clerk
and warehouseman, and the rest OF the
busy crowd who had thronged those
streets by day had one by one drlited
away to their homes, and the lofty ware
houses loomed black and forbidding
over the silent thoroughfares. Here and
there the CLEAN from solitary window
struggled Intellectually with the outer
darkness, ard served but to bring into
stronger relief the general gloom and
solitude. q.
And nowhere was the darkness deep
er or the sense of desolation more pro-
found than in St. Winifred'S Court. st.
Winifred's is one of those queer little
alleys which intersect the heart OF Lon
don, and consists, with one exception,
of houses let out as offices, and utterly
deserted at night. The court is bound
ed on one side by st. Winifred's Church,
while in one corner stands quaint old
house, occupying a nearly triangular
piece of ground, and forming the ex-
ception we have referred to, having been
for many years the residence OF St.
Winifred's organist, Michael Fray.
Many of these ancient churches still
remain in odd hooks and corners of the
city: relics of time when London
merchants made their homes in the
same spot whereon they earned their
daily dread, worshiping on Sunday in
these narrow aisles, and when their
time came asking no better resting place
than beneath those venerable flag stones
on which they had knelt in life. The
hberality of ancient founders and bene-
factors has left many of these old
churches richly endowed, and still,
Sunday after Sunday, rector and curate
mounttheir respective desks, and strug-
gle through their weekly task; but port
" aldermen and dignifed burgesses no
longer fill the high-backed pews. A
wheezy verger and pew-opener, with a
dozen or so of ancient men aud women,
care-takers of adjoining warehouses or
offices, too often form the only congre-
CATION.
St. Winifred's, like many of its sister
ediices, though small in extent, is no.
BILE monument of ecclesiastical archi-
teclure,} having been designed by an
architect of world wide 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
but living beauty. The western eX-
tremity of the church abuts upon mar
row lane, on a week day one of the buSi-
est in the city; but on Sundays the
broad portal is flung 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 fickering 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,
his only solace being the rare old or
gan, the friend and companion of his
lonely hours. The loss of his wife and
daughter had left him without kith or
kin. His father and mother had died
in their early youth, an only brother, a
gifted but wayward youth, had in early
life run away to sea, and had there
found watery grave. Being thus left
alone in the world, Michael Fray's love
for music, which had always been the
most marked feature of his character,
had become intensified into an absolute
passion. Evening after evening, when
darkness had settled on the city, and
none could complain that his music in-
terfered with business or distracted the
attention from the nooler clink of gold,
he was accustomed to creep quietly iu-
to the church and there "talk to him
self,n as he called it, at the old organ,
which answered him back again with a
tender sympathy and power OF consola-
ton which no mere listener could ever
have afforded. The organ of St. Wini-
fred's was of comparatively small size
and made but scanty show of pipes or
pedals; but the blacbened case and yell
low much-worn keys had been fashion
ed by the cunning brain and skillful fin
gers of "Father Smith" himself, and
never had the renowned old organ
builder turned out more skillful piece
of workmanship. And Michael Fray,
By use of years and loving tender study,
had got by heart every pipe and stop in
the rare old instrument, and had ac-
quired an almost magical power in
bringing out its tenderest tones and no
blest harmonies.
Hear him this Christmas Eve, as he
sits before the ancient keyboard, one
feeble candle dimly glimmering over
the well.worn page before him; flicker
inn vrnirJly, pva,. thp aOninDt poryiptr