They went to church presently, where the cotton-wool texts looked brave, if a little tired, and the usual smell of roast stove and drying cushions pervaded the airless atmosphere. Mr. Brady completely forgot the season when he touched upon the war. He took for his text the writing on the wall, and forgot that too, as he plunged into metaphor as difficult to follow as modern tactics; for in a breath he compared the Germans with burrowing snakes and carrion-seeking eagles, both of which expressions were listened to with rapture by his wife, and made the General and Darby tap their heads softly. Mr. Brady then explained smoothly how even as a God-fearing nation we wanted nothing but peace, and the best way to get it was to go and kill every man Jack of German traitors and treaty violators, until there were only grey-beards and infants left. "And, of course, the prisoners," he added, regretfully.
"The Redeemer of the world," he said, "never meant an army which warred on women and children to dominate humanity, and to-day, in the words of the Bible, it 'was to us to go forth and kill.'"
If he had not got on to the National Anthem very quickly someone would have cheered.
"Even if we are fighting, the texts will never do for next year," said Mrs. Keefe in the doorway. "So what would you think, Mrs. Freyne, of stuffing pillows for the troops with them now while the wool is fairly dry."
A fine rain was falling outside, and the gleam of wintry sunshine somewhere behind it; the day was very cold.
The heavy appetite engendered by church made George Freyne fidget, when Gheena delayed him by rushing off with Violet Weston. Mrs. Weston was brilliant in rather crude mauve, with sky-blue silk stockings on, and held Gheena's arm very affectionately as they whispered together.
The old Professor beamed at them all, a beam with sadness in it.
"In Germany they love Christmas so," he said gently. "The Gretchens and the Annas romp like children over their presents; they all over-eat themselves and everywhere is the smell of pine needles and candles which have burnt themselves out—the 'Tannen-baum.' The women are as bad as the men, you say, Mr. Freyne, because they look now as ever, when they are told to look. They clap their poor hands now for war as they did for the beauty of the Christmas-tree. Christmas, with empty chairs near the fire—is it not sad for all?"
"How you can say one word for the brutes who lamed my Lancelot," said Mrs. Augustus Freyne, "I do not know, Professor."
The Professor said humbly that he only spoke for humanity and Christmastide.