Part 88 (2/2)

”I will not. While G.o.d commands me I will do my duty.”

”Eh, but men are kittle cattle! I've often called you my ain son, but if I were your ain mother I ken fine what I'd do with you--I'd just slap you and mak' you. I'll leave the clothes, anyway. Maybe you'll be thinking better of it when I'm gone. Good-night to you. Your puir head's that hot and moidered---But what's wrang with you, John, man? What's come over ye anyway?”

He seemed to be hardly conscious of her presence, and after standing a moment at the door, looking back at him with eyes of love and pity, she left the room.

He had been asking himself for the first time how he was to carry out his design. Sitting on the end of the bed with his head propped on his hand he felt as if he were in the hold of a great s.h.i.+p, listening to the plash and roar of the stormy sea outside. The excitement of the populace was now ungovernable and the air was filled with groans and cries. He would have to pa.s.s through the people, and they would see him and detain him, or perhaps follow him. His impatience was now feverish. The thing he had to do must be done to-night, it must be done immediately. But it was necessary in the first place to creep out unseen. How was he to do it?

When he came to himself he had a vague sense of some one wis.h.i.+ng him good-night. ”Oh, good-night, good-night!” he cried with an apologetic gesture. But he was alone in the room, and on turning about he saw the bag on the floor, and remembered everything. Then a strange thing happened. Two conflicting emotions took hold of him at once--the first an enthusiastic, religious ecstasy, the other a low, criminal cunning.

Everything was intended. He was only the instrument of a fixed purpose.

These clothes were proof of it. They came to his hand at the very moment when they were wanted, when nothing else would have helped him. And Mrs.

Callender had been the blind agent in a higher hand to carry out the divine commands. Fly away and hide himself? G.o.d did not intend it. A warrant? No matter if it sent him like Cranmer to the stake. But this was a different thing entirely, this was G.o.d's will and purpose, this----

Yet even while thinking so he laughed an evil laugh, tore the clothes out of the bag with trembling hands, and made ready to put them on. He had removed his ca.s.sock when some one opened the door.

”Who's there?” he cried in a husky growl.

”Only me,” said a timid voice, and Brother Andrew entered, looking pale and frightened.

”Oh, you! Come in; close the door; I've something to say to you. Listen!

I'm going out, and I don't know when I shall be back. Where's the dog?”

”In the pa.s.sage, brother.”

”Chain him up at the back, lest he should get out and follow me. Put this ca.s.sock away, and if anybody asks for me say you don't know where I've gone--you understand?”

”Yes; but are you well, Brother Storm? You look as if you had just been running.”

There was a hand-gla.s.s on the washstand, and John s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and glanced into it and put it down again instantly. His nostrils were quivering, his eyes were ablaze, and the expression of his face was shocking.

”What are they doing outside? See if I can get away without being recognised,” and Brother Andrew went out to look.

The pa.s.sage from the chambers under the church was into a dark and narrow street at the back, but even there a group of people had gathered, attracted by the lights in the windows. Their voices could be heard through the door which Brother Andrew had left ajar, and John stood behind it and listened. They were talking of himself--praising him, blessing him, telling stories of his holy life and gentleness.

Brother Andrew reported that most of the people were at the front, and they were frantic with religious excitement. Women were crus.h.i.+ng up to the rail which the Father had leaned his head upon for a moment after he had finished his prayer, in order to press their handkerchiefs and shawls on it.

”But n.o.body would know you now, Brother Storm--even your face is different.”

John laughed again, but he turned off the lights, thinking to drive away the few who were still lingering in the back street. The ruse succeeded.

Then the man of G.o.d went out on his high errand, crept out, stole out, sneaked out, precisely as if he had been a criminal on his way to commit a crime.

He followed the lanes and narrow streets and alleys behind the Abbey, past the ”Bell,” the ”Boar's Head,” and the ”Queen's Arms”--taverns that have borne the same names since the days when Westminster was Sanctuary.

People home from the races were going into them with their red ties awry, with sprigs of lilac in their b.u.t.tonholes; and oak leaves in their hats. The air was full of drunken singing, sounds of quarrelling, shameful words and curses. There were some mutterings of thunder and occasional flashes of lightning, and over all there was the deep hum of the crowd in the church square.

Crossing the bottom of Parliament Street he was almost run down by a squadron of mounted police who were trotting into Broad Sanctuary. To escape observation he turned on to the Embankment and walked under the walls of the gardens of Whitehall, past the back of Charing Cross station to the street going up from the Temple.

The gate of Clement's Inn was closed, and the porter had to come out of his lodge to open it.

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