Part 38 (1/2)

While the two others still talked, the priest went to the side and looked over, again suddenly overwhelmed by the strangeness of the whole position. Once again there came on him the sense of irresponsible unreality. . . . He stared out, hardly seeing that on which he looked: the grey ma.s.s of the lower castle beneath with lighted windows, at the blankness beyond, again with the scattered lights--the nearer ones, within what seemed a stone's throw, along the village street--the farther ones, infinitely remote, out upon the invisible sea. There again too, far off across the land, shone another cl.u.s.ter of lights, seen rather as a luminous patch, that marked Rye. There too, eyes were watching; there too it was felt that interests were at stake, so vast and so unknown, that heaven or h.e.l.l might be within their limits. He looked inland, and there too was darkness, but darkness unrelieved. Near at hand, immediately below the bounding walls, rose up the dark swelling outlines that he knew to be the woods of the park, crowding up against the very castle walls themselves; and beyond, dimness after dimness, to meet the sky. . . .

It seemed to him incredible, as he looked, that things of such moment should be under way, somewhere beyond that sleeping country; and yet, as his eyes grew accustomed to the night, he could make out at last a faint glow in the sky to the north that marked the outskirts of that enormous city of which he was a citizen, where such matters even now were approaching a decision.

For it was only little by little that he had become aware that a real crisis was at hand. The Cardinal had told him the facts, indeed, in the dispa.s.sionate, tolerant manner that was characteristic of him; but the point of view necessary to take them in as a coherent whole, to see them, not as isolated events, but with the effect of the past upon them and their hidden implications and probabilities for the future--this needed that the observer should be of the temper and atmosphere of the time.

For prophecy just now was little better than feeling at outlines in the dark. Facts could be discerned and apprehended by all--and the priest was well aware of his own capacities in this--but their interpretation was another matter altogether. . . . He felt helpless and puzzled. . . .

The General came towards him.

”Well,” he said, ”anything to be seen?”

”Nothing.”

”We may as well make our way down again. There's nothing to be gained by stopping here.”

As they made their way down again through the covered pa.s.sage, the General once more began to talk about the crisis.

Monsignor had heard it all before; but he listened for all that.

It seemed to him worth while to collect opinions; and this soldier's very outspoken remarks cast a sort of sharp clarity upon the situation that the priest found useful. The establishment of the Church in England was being regarded on the Continent as a kind of test case; and even more by the Anglo-Saxon countries throughout the world. In itself it was not so vast a step forward as might be thought. It would make no very radical changes in actual affairs, since the Church already enjoyed enormous influence and complete liberty. But the point was that it was being taken as a kind of symbol by both sides; and this explained on the one hand the tactics of the Government in bringing it suddenly forward, and the extraordinary zeal with which the Socialists were demonstrating against it.

”The more I think of it,” said the General, ”the more----”

Monsignor stepped suddenly aside into the embrasure at which they had halted on the way up.

”What's the matter?”

”I thought I saw----”

The General uttered a sharp exclamation, pressing his head over the priest's shoulder.

”That's the second,” whispered the priest harshly.

Together they waited, staring out together through the tall, narrow window that looked towards Rye.

Then for the third time there rose against the far-off horizon, above that faint peak of luminosity that marked where Rye watched over her marshes, a thin line of white fire, slackening its pace as it rose.

Before it had burst in sparks, there roared out overhead a deafening voice of fire and thunder, shaking the air about them, bewildering the brain. Then another. Then another.

Beneath the two as they stood, shaking with the shock, silent and open-mouthed, staring at one another, in the courtyard a door banged; then another; and then a torrent of voices and footsteps as the servants and grooms poured out of the lower doors.

(III)

Two hours later the two ecclesiastics sat together, on either side of the large table in the Cardinal's room. The Cardinal pa.s.sed over the sheets one by one as he finished them. One set was being brought straight up here from the little office at the end of the hall. Another set, they knew, was simultaneously being read aloud by Lord Southminster in the hall below.