It was dreadful to him--and
yet it threw him more than ever on himself and God--that his father
would ride with him so no more. Henceforward he would go alone, or with
a servant only; he would, alone, go up to the door of house or barn and
rap four times with his riding-whip; alone he would pass upstairs
through the darkened house to the shrouded room, garret or bed-chamber,
where the group was assembled, all in silence; where presently a dark
figure would rise and light the pair of candles, and then, himself a
ghost, vest there by their light, throwing huge shadows on wainscot and
ceiling as his arms went this way and that; and then, alone of all that
were of blood-relationship to him, he would witness the Holy
Sacrifice....
How long that would be so, he did not know. Something surely must happen
that would prevent it. Or, at least, some day, he would ride so with
Marjorie, whom he had seen this morning across the dusky candle-lit
gloom, praying in a corner; or, maybe, with her would entertain the
priest, and open the door to the worshippers who streamed in, like bees
to a flower-garden, from farm and manor and village. He could not for
ever ride alone from Matstead and meet his father's silence.
One thing more, too, had moved him this morning; and that, the sight of
the young priest at the altar whom he had met on the moor. Here, more
than ever, was the gentle priestliness and innocency apparent. He stood
there in his red vestments; he moved this way and that; he made his
gestures; he spoke in undertones, lit only by the pair of wax-candles,
more Levitical than ever in such a guise, yet more unsuited than ever to
such exterior circumstances.
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