 The Mutual Broadcasting System in cooperation with Family Theatre Incorporated presents The Hound of Heaven starring Mark Stevens with Marvin Miller as narrator. Joan Caulfield is your hostess. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Here is tonight's Family Theatre Hostess, Miss Joan Caulfield. In everyone's life, there is an interesting story. A story that tells not only what has happened to us, but a story of our doubts and hopes and desires, our personal life story. And in each one's life, there is a reaching out, a seeking for happiness. All of us long for the joy that comes from friendship and kindness and love, and we all seek for peace and understanding. It would be a better and more wonderful world if every family could find true love and understanding. Yes, they should be in every home, and they can be because we have the most wonderful and powerful help to happiness. We have God's help in our home. When together as a family, we gather daily to pray. It's a privilege to be with you tonight on Family Theatre and to ask you to join the millions who in making family prayer, a daily practice, have brought a new joy and happiness into their life stories. Joan Caulfield will return to the microphone later in the program. Now the Family Theatre presents The Hound of Heaven, starring Mark Stevens, with Marvin Miller as your narrator. I fled him. I fled him down the nights. Yes, you fled him. You eluded him. I fled him down the nights and down the days. Yes, you twisted, turned, tried to escape him. But did you ever really escape him? Whether shall I go from thy spirit or whether shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend up into heaven now out there, if I descend into hell now out present. His name was Francis Thompson, and of all the lonely and obscure men who lived in London that year of 1887, none had made his bed in hell more surely than he. For him each night was a lying down in hunger and fear, each morning a slow awakening to pain. Here, you there? Get up. Oh, no. Get up, I say. Yes, yes. Can't sleep here. You know that. I know. I'm sorry, officer. Get along with you then. Get along, I say. For Francis Thompson, waking upon the Thames embankment, each morning was a slow return to pain, a remembrance of dreams twisted by hunger made hideous by fear. Dreams of delirium, shot through with dying stars and a river's mist, that always had their ending somewhere at the broken edge of the world, with the night stick prodding his chest. The agony of waking to another day. And then, as he would get to his feet, brushing the dirt and matted leaves from his coat, pulling it tight about him against the fog, London too it seemed returned to life, with the first cab in the street clopping by. The first mackerel peddler crying his wares, with the first farmer's cart piled high with Surrey hay, and the whistle of the Edinburgh Express coming down from the northern hills. As he awoke, London awoke with him, and they faced each other at the beginning of the day, the man of bone and flesh against the city of stone, the man with a tired heart driving his broken knuckles against the stone, which never yielded. Each day began as another, a hape-me for a mug of tea, tuppence for a stale loaf of bread, as if search for an old rag, a wadded newspaper to line his shoes, and then the long cramp in search for work. Pardon, sir, would there be a place for me somewhere in... Surrey, no work today. Would you be needing a man to... Surrey, we have all the help we need. Unemployment, Francis. Unemployment. It's the scourge that can lash a man's spirit. It's a cross, a contradiction of economies that hangs heavily upon the shoulders of people like you, Francis. So you've got to keep walking, keep searching. Maybe somewhere you'll find work. You can't stop now to rest. Take a turn down this street. Now they are through the crooked alley to the haberdasher shop. Surrey, no work for you. Try the greengrocer across the street. Surrey, no work for you. Perhaps the wine shop. Try that. Surrey, no work for you. The warehouse, the warehouse. Surrey, no work for you. Surrey, no work for you. Yes, Francis, the day is over. The long tramping from door to door. Huddle there in the darkened doorway and take your rest. There will be no bread for your hunger tonight, no roof above your head. And there will be no drug to soothe the madness in your throat and brain. Lie in the doorway, take your rest. For tomorrow's another day, and if you live, there'll be more miles to walk. Death comes slowly to the afflicted, so you cannot hope for much tonight. What's that? A drum, perhaps. It could be the failing beat of your heart. No, it's not that. I heard often it stops, then it begins again. Your imagination. No, it's like footsteps, as though someone were following me. No, be silly. Try to rest. No matter where I go, I hear them. They follow me always. It's the drug, Francis. You're craving for it. Try to get through this night, and perhaps tomorrow you'll find work and money, and then you can buy it. It's not the drug. All my imagination, they are footsteps, and they follow me wherever I go. I'm like a man with hounds crying after them. A hunted thing and a swamp, and I hear those footsteps. Night and day, I hear them. There. There you hear them. I hear a drum. I hear my heart beat. It is footsteps, all right. Someone approaching the doorway. Hello. You there. Are you all right? I'm all right. Why, Lottie, you shouldn't be lying here in the doorway. You'll catch a death of cold. Here, let me help you up. I'm all right, I say. Are you? I tell you, Lottie, this is a bad night for a man's body and soul. What right have you got to talk about bodies and souls? The right of one human being to another, Lottie. Well, you can save your words. I'm not interested. Maybe so, Lottie, but there's a kind of lonely pride in your face that tells me you're a man fit for better things than lying in doorways. Look, my friend, you mean well, and for that I thank you, but I'm sick, I'm tired, I'm hungry. I know you're sick, I know you're alone. That's why I'd like to help you. What do you mean, help? I want you to come home with me. My name's McMasters. I'm a bootmaker by trade, and I can put you to work if you want a job. Work? You'll owe me nothing, Lottie, nothing at all. But why should you do this for me? Why shouldn't I, Lottie? If the situation were reversed, it's you who would be reaching out your hand to me. This way it's my good fortune. Here, here, come along now, Lottie. It's a warm bed for you tonight, and a good day's work in the morning. Hello, Francis. How goes the work? Not so well, Mr. McMasters. I'm afraid I don't think I was cut out for a cobbler. Ah, you're just learning, Lottie. All these three weeks have been here. Tell me, Lottie, now I don't want to pry or anything, but what is your trade or profession? I have none. If I did, I suppose you'd call it journalism. You're right then. Yes, Mr. McMasters. What do you write, Francis? The usual thing, I suppose, reviews, essays, some poetry, the sort of things that never sell. Here, Lottie, try some of this tobacco. It's an Irish mixture. Thanks. Light? Where did you go to school, Francis? I sure. It's about four miles from Durham. You were studying? I wanted to enter the priesthood. I failed. Oh, I'm sorry. It's strange when you come to think of it. I'm 28, you know. You'd think that in 28 years a man would be able to win... to win one victory. You'd think that, but it isn't true. After I was rejected for the priesthood, my father sent me to Manchester to study medicine. Six years, examinations, every two. I failed all of them. The feat for me was like a web. I seemed to be caught in it, woven into its pattern. After a while I became afraid to try anything at all for fear I'd fail at it. I came to London. To break the pattern? No, to lose myself. To crawl into the darkest corner of the city and hide. Ah, ladi, ladi. And how long have you... Two years. Two years come, November. Two years on the streets. In doorways. The way I found you. Oh, no, not always. I was a boot black for a time. I worked for a book, I had a lot of resources, sold matches. I never kept any job long. Spent most of my time in the library reading, writing. Things that wouldn't sell. Only I had to write them. Oh, ladi, how could you do it? How could you live? You're not a fighter. You weren't made to walk the streets and fight the city. The way, the way you've hunted? No, it's a poet and lavalier, Francis. And I wonder how could you live? Uh-oh. I don't know. Maybe it was because I prayed. I'd say that, only sometimes there was even no belief in my prayers. And I felt as if God were not listening to me. You see, living the way I did in hunger, a disordered, nervous condition, loneliness, you can't think clearly sometimes. You doubt your own mind's power to think. Then you can't pray right. Only I went on praying and... I'm still alive. That's all I know. I'm still alive. God willing, you'll stay alive, Francis, for you're a roof over your head now and a job. And maybe, maybe time to write. Maybe time to write something great and good. It would be pleasant to be able to say that Francis Thompson settled down to an ordered life and turned out a great work of literature. That he rewarded his benefactor in some generous way. But the facts are quite different. Thompson was useless around the cobbler shop. He was willing but clumsy and inefficient. He scribbled verses when he should have been working. And his few earnings were spent to satisfy the craving for opium which constantly tortured him. He spent three months with McMasters, and then one day he disappeared. McMasters waited for him to return that night. He waited many nights as the autumn months passed into winter. But Francis Thompson never came back. Of the many unfortunates McMasters had befriended and given jobs, Thompson alone proved a disappointment. He was my only failure, McMasters wrote. He was my only failure. Where are you? Where do you think you're going? You stay away from that church. There's other places for tramps. I wasn't going to do it. Dirty. Going to crawl into the church where it's warm, eh? Thought no one would see you. Go on. Get on your way. The church? Yes. Get along, I say. Yes. There's where I can go. You come along with me. I'll take you to a place where... Here! You come back! You'll go inside for this! Resisting the laws of penal offence! Lord have mercy upon me. Christ have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon me. Have mercy upon you, Francis Thompson. Have mercy upon your weaknesses and failures. Have mercy and through you on all the poor and broken who walk in the city streets. Help us all, oh God. From the city itself, from the cruelty of stone and the horror of the pavement. Defend me, oh God. From the arms house and prison, from the makeshift bed in the doorway. Defend me, oh God. From hunger in the day and wakefulness at night, from the torn coat and the broken shoes, from the stairs of pity and the stairs of contempt. Deliver me, oh God. From the man whose hand is against us, from his anger in his clenched fist, from the sudden blow against the mouth. Deliver me, oh God. And give us this day our daily bread. Give me this day my daily bread. But more than the bread alone, oh God, give us the strength to earn our bread. Hear me, oh God. Christ have mercy on us. Christ have mercy on me. Time to go, Francis. The church is empty. The sexton's putting out the candles one by one. I cannot go. If I leave, I'll forget how to pray. You must. Where? Somewhere. A doorway perhaps. There's that grain warehouse in Cock Lane if you could force a window. Oh, the rats. Well, there's always the embankment. It's snowing. Then what? Oh, perhaps this is the end of all my running. Death. Death comes slowly to the afflicted. But not to me. A loaf of bread, a mug of coffee. Three years. Is it four days? The dizzy spells, fever, the cough. No, it can't be far off, even to me. Do you want to die? Do I want to live this way? Do you not know, Francis, God doesn't live in me. God is perfection, health and beauty. Can God live in a broken body and a mind that doubts its own reason? No. No, I lost God. Sometime I left the cobbler shop. I lost him somewhere in the alleys of East Cheep. But has God lost you, Francis? What? Has he lost you? But if I deny him, how can he find me? Listen. Do you hear that? The footsteps. The footsteps of the hound. Do you remember, Francis? The footsteps. Yes. Yes, they always follow me. But there's something inside of me. Oh, God, forgive me some fear, some bread that keeps me running from these footsteps! Hello. What's wrong? Why are you running? Nothing. Can someone help me? Help me, please! There, there. It's all right. What? What happened? You've been quite sick. Sick? Don't you remember? How long have I? Three days. Don't you remember at all you were running along the street and you fled? Yes. Yes, I remember now. You were the girl that... I brought you here to this boarding house. I tried to find out who you were, but nothing in your pockets to identify you except this book. It had Francis Thompson written inside. Yes, yes. I didn't know where you lived if I didn't know and I wouldn't... It doesn't matter. I have no home. I've been sleeping outside on the embankment anyway. I'm afraid I've put you to a lot of trouble. I think I'd better... But you can't go! You're sick. The doctor said you must rest and eat. He said you was dying from starvation. You called a doctor? I had to. But that costs money. I have nothing... Don't say it. What is your name? Anne. Who are you? I mean... What sort of work do you do? Nothing. Very much. Nothing important. I... I didn't mean to pry. I just wanted... Anne. Yes? Maybe you haven't done anything important, as you say. I don't know what you are, but I've been wandering across a plane of fever and delirium. Three days, you tell me. Dreams came up like clouds over those three days. But in the end, it seemed I heard footsteps behind me. They were after me and I ran and I ran. And far at the edge of the plane I saw a cross standing and I thought if I can only reach that cross, I'll be safe. So I ran toward it. Only when I got there, it wasn't a cross. It was you. You understand. You mean that you don't care what I am? No, no. I only wonder, wonder what I can ever do for you in return. And so, through the kindness of a complete stranger, an outcast much like himself, the healing of Francis Thompson began. To him, this girl gave of the little she had food, clothing, encouragement, but more than that, an ease from loneliness. To her, he gave things unknown in her life, tenderness and reverence and respect. And then at last, Francis Thompson began to write. A passion of Mary, a poem, paganism, old and new, an essay. Two things finished, actually finished. It's hard to believe that I had the power, the sheer mental power to work them through. Francis Thompson was right. His work was good. And Wilfred Maynell, editor of the magazine Mary England, published the pieces, sought out the author and extended to him the hand which would lift him from obscurity. But Francis Thompson, about to reach for the hand, suddenly withdrew himself. What about Anne? Anne! Anne! I sold him to Mr. Maynell and Anne, he's interested in me. He wants me to come and live with him to do my work at his home and... I mean, once us. Us? Yes. You see, I told him we were to be married and that I would come only if you'd come with me. No. I want you to marry me, Anne. Don't you understand? Yes, I understand. But you... You're a great writer, Francis, and you've got the chance now to get away from this, away from the street and be with the people of your own kind. No, Francis. I won't marry you. But why, Anne? You're not talking sense. Why? I'm not worthy of you, Francis. You know that. You're great and good, and I might only urge you. I might... I might keep you with... It'd been good what we've had together, Francis. But you'll have to go on alone now. You'll have to go on... alone. And so the girl who had lifted him from the street vanished from his life. He searched for her all the next and the next, but she had disappeared. He turned away from the extended hand of Maynell in his search for her and days passed into weeks, weeks into a month and two months as he tramped the mighty labyrinths of London. But he never found her. Among the millions of faces he looked into, none was hers. And then at last one day sitting on a bench in Covent Garden, barren from the grief that had drained him, he heard the familiar sound of footsteps. Francis. Yes. She's gone. You'll never find her again. I know. Now there's nothing left. Nothing but the footsteps. Do you hear them? I hear them. Think back, Francis. Isn't it strange how each time you've cried, each time the horror of life has risen up to crush you, you heard the footsteps? Yes, each time I've lost the sense of God I've heard them. Only in those times? I would begin to hear them faintly when my faith grew weaker and my prayers. And at last when I'd lost the sense of God they beat like thunder in my ears. As they are beating now. Yes. And as they beat the night Anne came to you. Yes. And the night McMasters found you. Yes, yes. What are you driving at? Don't you know? Think, Francis. Think. Is it possible you could touch God by the hand and not know it? The hound of heaven. The footsteps of God in Charing Cross. No matter where I fled they followed. Down the nights and days the twisted lanes and passageways of all London. Down the years and months and days they followed. God's love pressing in on me when I denied him. God's love hounding me through the swamps despair. God who wouldn't let me go even though I denied him. God looking at me out of her eyes and touching me with her hands. Yes, I know now. I know these footsteps. Then search out your soul, Francis and put what you find into words. All the hunger and pain and loneliness of these tortured years write it, Francis. I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinthian ways of my own mind and in the midst of tears I hid from him. Write it for all to read, Francis, for the poor, the beaten, the hungry, the tempted, the weak, for those like you all over the world. I hid from him, from those strong feet that followed, followed after, but with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, they beat and a voice beat more instant than the feet. All things betray thee who betray us made. Put into words the streets and the sleepless nights, the cold sweats and the agony of thought. Bring into them, for you will never find her again. And McMasters, and put the losing of God into words the awful loneliness. For, though I knew his love who followed, yet I was sore at dread, lest, having him, I might have not beside. And Francis, put into words the joy that came when God had found you once again. And past those noisy feet, a voice comes yet more aflete. I have fondest, blindest, weakest. I am he whom thou seekest. Yes, put all this into words, Francis, that others may draw courage from them and find their way to peace. For it is you, Francis Thompson, who went down to make a bed in hell, but found God's love and mercy following you, even there. And so, Francis Thompson, who today ranks among the great poets, went on to build a new life for himself, created by the kindness of the Maynell family, went on to complete the Hound of Heaven, and give the world one of the most inspiring poems of all literature, the story of God's love and mercy. Family Theater has presented the Hound of Heaven starring Mark Stevens, with Marvin Miller as narrator. Now, here is tonight's hostess, Joan Caulfield. There are many influences that in one way or another can turn or shape our way of life, and the most important influence in our lives is love of God. It's the basis of our love of neighbor and the inspiration for our tolerance, for our faith in fellow men. It gives us the sublime power to rise above petty difficulties and differences, and it brings to our homes and to our children a true appreciation of the purpose and meaning of life. And the simple expression of our love of God through family prayer brings the most wonderful blessing on our homes, because a family that prays together stays together. Before saying good night, I'd like to thank Mark Stevens for his performances Francis Thompson and narrator Marvin Miller. Our thanks to Frederick Lipp for writing tonight's play and to Max Turf for his music. This production of Family Theater Incorporated was directed by David Young. Next week on Family Theater, the star will be Bob Hope in T-Formation, and your hostess will be Joan Leslie. This is Joan Caulfield saying good night, and God bless you. This series of the Family Theater broadcast is made possible by the thousands of you who felt a need for this kind of program by the Mutual Broadcasting System, which has responded to this need. Tony LaFranco speaking, this is the Mutual Broadcasting System.