He mouthed out the lines in a perfect ecstasy of madness. It was delightful to be alone. He could give his soul full vent. He knew he was mad. He knew he was an archangel.
And all the way down he repeated to himself, many times over, that he would trample under foot that base fiend Walter Tyrrel. Satan has many disguises; squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, he sat in Paradise; for
“...spirits as they please
Can limb themselves, and color, or size assume
As likes them best, condense or rare.”
If he himself, Michael, prince of celestial hosts, could fit his angelic majesty to the likeness of a man, Trevennack—could not Satan meet him on his own ground, and try to thwart him as of old in the likeness of a man, Walter Tyrrel—his dear boy’s murderer.
As far as Exeter this was his one train of thought. But from there to Plymouth new passengers got in. They turned the current. Trevennack changed his mind rapidly. Another mood came over him. His wife’s words struck him vaguely in some tenderer place. “Fight the devil WITHIN you, Michael. Fight him there, and conquer him.” That surely was fitter far for an angelic nature. That foeman was worthier his celestial steel. “Turn homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth!” Not his to do vengeance on the man Walter Tyrrel. Not his to play the divine part of vindicator. In his madness even Trevennack was magnanimous. Leave the creature to the torment of his own guilty soul. Do angels care for thrusts of such as he? Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?
At Ivybridge station the train slowed, and then stopped. Trevennack, accustomed to the Cornish express, noted the stoppage with surprise. “We’re not down to pull up here!” he said, quickly, to the guard.
“No sir,” the guard answered, touching his hat with marked respect, for he knew the Admiralty official well. “Signals are against us. Line’s blocked as far as Plymouth.”
“I’ll get out here, then,” Trevennack said, in haste; and the guard opened the door. A new idea had rushed suddenly into the madman’s head. This was St. Michael’s Day—his own day; and there was St. Michael’s Tor—his own tor—full in sight before him. He would go up there this very evening, and before the eyes of all the world, in his celestial armor, taking Lucy’s advice, do battle with and quell this fierce devil within him.
No sooner thought than done. Fiery hot within, he turned out of the gate, and as the shades of autumn evening began to fall, walked swiftly up the moor toward the tor and the uplands.
As he walked his heart beat to a lilting rhythm within him. “Go, Michael, of celestial armies prince!—Go, Michael!—Go, Michael! Go, Michael, of celestial armies prince—Go, Michael!—Go, Michael!”