All that he really thought was: “I wonder if he’ll come nearer.” But he did not. Jeremy himself moved and suddenly the whole cathedral stirred, the mist breaking, steps sounding on the flags, voices echoing. No figure was there—only shadow. But here was that horrid fat man, the precentor, who sometimes came to their house to tea.
“Why, my boy, what are you doing here?” he asked in his big superior voice.
“I came in,” said Jeremy, still staring at the steps of the choir, “just for a moment.”
The precentor put his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “That’s right, my lad,” he said. “Study our great church and all its history. You cannot begin too young. Father well, and mother well?”
“Yes,” said Jeremy, looking back behind him as he turned away. Oh! but his face had been fine! So strong, like a rock, his sword had shone and his gauntlets! How tall he had been, and how mighty his chest.
“That’s right! That’s right. Remember me to them when you get home. You must come up and play with my little girls one of these afternoons.”
“I’m going back to school,” Jeremy said, “day after to-morrow.”
“Well, well. That’s a pity, that’s a pity. Another day, perhaps. Good day to you. Good day.”
Chanting, he went along, and Jeremy stood outside the cathedral staring about him. Lights were blowing in the wind; the dusk was blue and grey. The air was thick with armoured men marching in a vast procession across the sky. The wind blew, they flashed downwards in a cloud, wheeling up into the sky again as though under command.
The air cleared; the huge front of the cathedral was behind him, and before him, under the Precinct’s lamp, Miss Jones and Helen.