Shadow of Death in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ without boards, which had belonged to her father. When all had ceased--when the prayer, the singing, and the final benediction were over, Annie crept out into the dark street as if into the Outer Darkness. She felt the rain falling upon something hot, but she hardly knew that it was her own cheeks that were being wetted by the heavy drops. Her first impulse was to run to Alec and Curly, put her arms about their necks, and entreat them to flee from the wrath to come. But she could not find them to-night. She must go home. For herself she was not much afraid; for there was a place where prayer was heard as certainly as at the mercy-seat of old--a little garret room namely, with holes in the floor, out of which came rats; but with a door as well, in at which came the prayed-for cat. But alas for poor Annie and her chapel-going! As she was creeping slowly up from step to step in the dark, the feeling came over her that it was no longer against rats, nor yet against evil things dwelling in the holes and corners of a neglected human world, that she had to pray. A spiritual terror was seated on the throne of the universe, and was called God--and to whom should she pray against it? Amidst the darkness, a deeper darkness fell. She knelt by her bedside, but she could not lift up her heart; for was she not one of them that forget God? and was she not therefore wicked? and was not God angry with her every day? Was not the fact that she could not pray a certain proof that she was out of God's favour, and counted unworthy of his notice? But there was Jesus Christ: she would cry to him. But did she believe in him? She tried hard to convince herself that she did; but at last she laid her weary head on the bed, and groaned in her young despair. At the moment a rustling in the darkness broke the sad silence with a throb of terror. She started to her feet. She was exposed to all the rats in the universe now, for God was angry with her, and she could not pray. With a stifled scream she darted to the door, and half tumbled down the stair in an agony of fear. "What gars ye mak sic a din i' the hoose o' the Sawbath nicht?" screamed Mrs Bruce. But little did Annie feel the reproof. And as little did she know that the dreaded rats had this time been the messengers of God to drive her from a path in which lies madness. She was forced at length to go to bed, where God made her sleep and forget him, and the rats did not come near her again that night. Curly and Alec had been in the chapel too, but they were not of a temperament to be disturbed by Mr Brown's discourse. CHAPTER XXVII. Little as Murdoch Malison knew of the worlds of thought and feeling--Annie's among the rest--which lay within those young faces and forms assembled the next day as usual, he knew almost as little of the mysteries that lay within himself.