His very sturdiness and
breeziness made his reverence the more evident and pathetic: he read the
mass rapidly, in a low voice, harshened by shouting in the open air over
his sports, made his gestures abruptly, and yet did the whole with an
extraordinary attention. After the communion, when he turned for the
wine and water, his face, as so often with rude folk in a great emotion,
browned as it was with wind and sun, seemed lighted from within; he
seemed etherealized, yet with his virility all alive in him. A phrase,
wholly inapplicable in its first sense, came irresistibly to the younger
priest's mind as he waited on him. "When the strong man, armed, keepeth
his house, his goods are in peace."
Robin heard the third mass, said by Mr. Ludlam, from a corner near the
door; and this one, too, was a fresh experience. The former priest had
resembled a strong man subdued by grace; the second, a weak man ennobled
by it. Mr. Ludlam was a delicate soul, smiling often, as has been said,
and speaking little--"a mild man," said the countryfolk. Yet, at the
altar there was no weakness in him; he was as a keen, sharp blade,
fitted as a heavy knife cannot be, for fine and peculiar work. His
father had been a yeoman, as had the other's; yet there must have been
some unusual strain of blood in him, so deft and gentle he was--more at
his ease here at God's Table than at the table of any man.... So he,
too, finished his mass, and began to unvest.
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