"The All Saints crows his Lordship pets,
And, hoping against hope, forgets
The many birds that thence have come,
Fled to the rookery of Rome.
* * * * *
"Can it be right to consecrate
The new church in Street Margaret,
Which looks more Puseyite by far
Than English churches elsewhere are?"
He read these lines with interest, because he knew that the famous Tractarian church had once been Margaret Chapel, where his mother had been married. Then he laughed, and threw the paper away.
What a devil of a time they were in coming! He got up and looked at the photograph of a young man in uniform on the mantelpiece, one of Tristram's lads. Five years ago, at Inkerman, after his regiment had carried, at the point of the bayonet, the seven times captured and recaptured Sandbag Battery, the young lieutenant of Zouaves had happened to address a word or two in English to one of the rescued men of the 95th, and thus, amid the carnage, had made the surprising discovery of a common friend in an English clergy-house...
Maurice put his elbows on the chimney-piece. Four years more of soldiering, encounters with Kabyles in Africa, even this summer's guns of Magenta and Solferino, had done little to efface the memory of Sebastopol, its horror and its glory. Still, in dreams, he led his men through the iron hail up to the Malakoff; still, sometimes, felt again the shock and blankness when that hail had scorched him too, and he fell, not knowing that he had outdone the daring even of his own most daring corps. More pleasant to dream of was the waking in hospital and the finding, pinned to the sheet, the red-ribboned, five-pointed star, the Cross of the Legion of Honour, which they had doubted if he would live to receive. Most pleasant of all, the putting it into his mother's hands.
The Crimea had won him that, and his step as captain. Last July had brought him more promotion; last month still more. But last week had given him—— he smiled and pulled at his ridiculous moustache. Grand Dieu! what had he done to deserve such happiness?
Here they were at last! The young man deliberately went out of the lamplight into a corner and stood with his back to any who should enter. The door opened.
"You know, Charles," the well-remembered voice was saying, "that unless you obey me in this I shan't allow you to preach at all to-morrow."
And the other voice, palpably tired, but very quiet and even, replied: "If I were you, Tristram, I would not utter threats before witnesses. Look there!"
Maurice turned slowly round and faced the two priests, but the blur of shadow hid the smile on his face.
"There is nothing the matter?" asked the taller, a note of sharp alarm in his tone. "Horatia—your mother is not ill?"