The old priest turned on and reached his account of the ruin of St. Paul’s, which had occurred after the Troubles and, indeed, during his own childhood. He had actually seen it standing, though he had not seen it fall. In the chronicle he described the catastrophe, the portents which preceded it, and the cloud of dust which hung for a few minutes over the settling ruins, and in which many had thought they had seen an avenging shape.
After this he had given a long and elaborate account of the wonderful building, supplementing his childish recollections from a rich and varied tradition. Father Henry remembered that the great dome of the cathedral had been gilded, and here tradition supported him. Jeremy, however, declared that this was not true. The old priest looked carefully through what he had written; and then, sitting back in his great chair and rattling his quill between his teeth, he considered Jeremy’s evidence. At last he shook his head, put down his pen, and locked his papers away. Having done this, he blew out all the candles but one, took the last and dragged himself heavily away to bed.
CHAPTER V
THE SPEAKER
1
WHEN Jeremy woke, the same panic terror of that transition seized him again for a moment and poised him on a razor’s edge between consciousness and unconsciousness. It passed. The clear morning light falling on his bed revealed to him that his humdrum existence in the new world began with that day. The surprises and the anxieties were over. All that remained was a process of adaptation and settlement; and, feeling a certain eagerness to begin, he began by scrambing out of bed.
There was, as he might have remembered, no bath in the room; and he decided that to search for one along these unknown corridors would be an enterprise not less chimerical than embarrassing. He looked about the room rather helplessly and lit at last on what he had not seen the night before, a metal ewer of water with a basin, standing behind the wooden chest. There was no soap with them, and the chest turned out to be locked. He was still revolving this problem in his mind, while the nightshirt flapped pleasantly round his legs in a light draught, when Roger came in, looking as placid and collected as he had been when he had shown Jeremy to bed.
“Are you well?” Roger asked; and, without waiting for a reply, he went on smoothly, “Of course you have nothing of your own for dressing. I’ve brought you my soap and a razor and a glass—and....” He hesitated a little.
“Yes?” Jeremy encouraged him.
“I thought perhaps it might be better if I were to lend you some of my clothes. You know, your own do look.... If you don’t mind....”
“Of course not,” Jeremy assented with pleasure. It was the last of his desires to be in any way conspicuous. “I should very much prefer it.”