“I never smoked a cigar.”
“Then take these,” said Andy, emptying his case of that portion of his aunt’s last Christmas present with which he had stocked it in anticipation of the luncheon-party.
“Thank you, sir,” said the man, stuffing them into his bag with a bit of bread and half an onion.
Then he plodded on again, thinking the Vicar was a rum ’un, and no mistake, and agreeing with the newspaper he took that parsons ought to be done away with if they could afford to go about with their pockets crammed with cigars.
Andy stood there, looking after the man as he went up the lane to the little house where he slept at night, and where he had kept his wife, and maintained his children ever since early youth. He smelt of earth and sweat and was rough in his manner, and yet he enabled the Vicar of Gaythorpe to get hold of that thought which had previously eluded him.
Andy saw.
It is pleasant to see the glory in things that are glorious, but there is a still more intimate and exquisite pleasure about seeing glory in things which seem sordid. It is a sort of treasure-hunting of the soul—as fresh and full of life as a boy’s treasure-hunt in a water-logged hulk—as full of the thrillingly unexpected.
Andy went back into the study and took down some accounts which he had shelved. They dated from the late Vicar’s time, and were complicated, and he stuck to them until they were done.
But he had no idea why he did it.
At last he put down his pen and stretched himself, and something he had vaguely been keeping at bay ever since the early afternoon swept over him like a tide. He lit a candle and went out into the silent hall where the light was already extinguished, and unlocked the dining-room door. It had the odd look common to all unused rooms at night—they seem to be waiting in some uncanny and yet quite conscious way for somebody long gone.