It was only a block from the Deanery to the Cathedral, and the night was bright with moonlight, and mysterious with a film of mist. As the Dean drew near to the Cathedral his heart sank, for unmistakably there was music on the air, a loud and merry tune played upon the organ, mingled with singing voices and an occasional shout of laughter. And unquestionably there was light in the large church, not much, but some. As he approached the West Door the Dean thought that he saw a lurking figure, but when he drew near it had vanished. St Nicholas’ Cathedral in Salterton is not one of your common Canadian cathedrals, in sham Gothic; it is a reproduction, on a much smaller scale, of St Paul’s, and it has a periwigged dignity of its own. The West Door was under a columned portico, darkly shadowed at this time of night.

The Dean took out his key, and listened. The music and the laughter were not so plainly to be heard here as in the street, but they were plain enough, and eerie. The Dean admitted to himself that he was frightened. He was a devout man, and while devotion undoubtedly brings its spiritual rewards it brings its spiritual terrors too. This was All Hallow’s Eve, and if he truly believed in All Saints on the morrow, why should he not believe in the Powers of Darkness tonight? He had never been the sort of Christian who wants to have things all his own way—to preach the love of God and to deny the existence of the Devil. Well, if he had to meet the Devil in the line of duty, he would do so like a man. He muttered a prayer, unlocked the door and tiptoed into the vast shadows of the church.

At first it seemed to him that the chancel was filled with people, but when his astonishment subsided he judged the number to be six or seven. In his own stall—the Dean’s stall!—a man was standing on his cushion, waving his arms in time to the music of the organ and the voice of the organist. It was a good tenor voice, and it was singing:

On the chancel steps a group of people, hand in hand, were circling in a dance, a sort of reel, and now and then one of them would cry “Heigh!” in the high voice used by Highland dancers.

The voice was full and joyous and the accompaniment skirled and whistled from the reed pipes of the organ. The Dean stood amazed for a time—it could not have been long, but he was so astonished that he was unable to make any estimate of it—and then wondered what he should do. These were no devils, and as people they did not look very frightening. Indeed, he realized with astonishment at himself that he had been looking at their antics with admiration, thinking what a pretty sight they made, dancing there, and how beautiful his Cathedral looked in this light, with this music and with these inhabitants. Such thoughts would never do. He strode forward and shouted in a loud voice: “What is the meaning of this?”

The effect was everything that he could have desired, except that the music did not stop. The men roared, and scurried for cover behind the choir stalls; the women—or girls, he judged them to be—shrieked and hid themselves; one leapt into the Bishop’s throne and slammed the little door behind her, and another dived into a pew where, on the principle supposed to be favoured by ostriches, she hid her head, but left a great deal of silk-stockinged leg and some inches of thigh in clear view.

The voice concluded triumphantly. Then as the notes of the organ seemed to fly away into the shadows at the roof of the chancel it cried again: “How was that?”

‘Mr Cobbler, what is the meaning of this?” called the Dean sternly.

“Oh, my God!” said the voice, dismayed, and from the organ console emerged the figure of Humphrey Cobbler, the Cathedral organist, dishevelled and ill-dressed, badly in want of a haircut, plainly drunk, but with an air of invincible cheerfulness which shone through even his present discomfiture.

‘Mr Dean,” he said, fatuously, “this is an unexpected pleasure.”

‘Mr Cobbler,” said the Dean, now fully in command of the situation, “answer my question: What is going on here?”

“Well, Mr Dean, it isn’t altogether easy to explain. Very odd, on the face of it. As I shall be the first to admit. But when taken in the light of everything that has gone before, and viewed historically, if I may so express myself, quite inevitable and defensible and not in the least reprehensible, if I make myself clear.”

Cobbler delivered this speech with a fine rhetorical air, and there was an appreciative snigger from one of the hidden figures.

“Who are these people?” said the Dean, gesturing broadly. When he had entered the Cathedral he had suffered from the sense of insufficiency which afflicts a man who is wearing no trousers under his cassock: now he was free of that disability, and had indeed acquired the spacious and authoritative manner of a man who is wearing, and has a right to wear, a handsome cloak. “Come out, all of you, at once,” he cried.

“If you please, Mr Dean,” said Cobbler, “don’t ask that. This is entirely my fault, and I accept the full responsibility. Don’t ask them to come out. Not fair to them. My fault.”

“Be silent, Mr Cobbler,” said the Dean sternly. “Come out, all of you, and be quick.”

Shuffling and scraping, they came out. And the Dean was amazed to see, not a pack of middle-aged roisterers, but four boys and three girls of university age, plainly students at Waverley, and all looking shame-faced enough to melt a harder heart than his.

“Students, I see,” said the Dean, because he could think of nothing better to say.

“My students, Mr Dean, and here entirely because of me,” said Cobbler. “I hope that you will allow me to send them away, now, for they are really not to blame for what has happened.”

“You must all go away, at once,” said the Dean. “And I shall see you, Mr Cobbler, at the Deanery at half-past ten tomorrow morning. Now go.” And he herded them toward the West Door.

But as they drew near to it, he had a sudden thought, and pushing past the boys and girls he opened the door a crack and peeped out. Yes, there was a figure, lurking, which could only be Miss Pottinger. The Dean was annoyed. He wanted time to make up his mind about this matter, and he did not want any interference. He was angry with Miss Pottinger for snooping around the Cathedral when he had told her to stay at home. Perhaps unreasonably, he was angrier with her than with the sheepish students who had been making merry in his Cathedral. So he turned, and without explanation, drove them before him to a door which communicated with the Church House and Sunday School annex of the Cathedral, and from there he dismissed them into a street far from where Miss Pottinger kept her vigil. When they had been gone a few minutes he followed them, and went back to the Deanery wrapped in thought.

Miss Pottinger, shivering with cold and disappointed curiosity, hung about the West Door until Archie Blaine, The Bellman reporter, returning late from the office, approached her and asked if anything was wrong. And, as often happens when something is wrong, Miss Pottinger denied it vehemently and scampered across the street to her own house.