"CRUCIFY TO YOURSELVES AFRESH THE SON OF MAN ..."
It was the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, and for what reason I don't remember—certainly, the house-party at Goodford were hardly zealots in the matter of church-going—that Sunday evening quite a party had been got up to go to the office at Ritching. The fact, I believe, was that the fame of Dr Burton's oratory had spread through the house, and dowager and lordling, finding the Sabbath evening empty, yielded to the pique of curiosity and to Mrs Edward's organising genius.
Baron Kolár, too, had everywhere dropped the opinion that Dr Burton was a nice fellow, that he was not so bad, that he was the only living man with whom grandiose speech was a natural function, like sleep.
Langler alone had declined to take part in the bout. Under any circumstances, I fancy, he would have shrunk from that kind of religious picnic; but he had now the special reason that he meant to go "at seven" that evening to the rendezvous at Hallam Castle given him in the unsigned letter.
To me this seemed very foolish, for I argued that no one could know the whereabouts of Robinson except those to whom he owed his disappearance, and during two days I had been praying Langler to ignore the letter. He answered that he had made up his mind to go. But at least he would let me go with him, I urged. He answered that he would rather be alone. What arms, I asked, would he take with him? He said that he was not accustomed to carry weapons about, and would take his stick.
"But you speak," I had said, "just as though you were not conscious of any danger in the undertaking."
"Well, I am conscious of danger," he answered, "but I believe that in proportion to the danger may be the amount of information to be gathered."
He had said that he would walk to Hallam Castle (three miles), and then, after his interview with the letter-writer, walk from Hallam to Ritching church (two miles), in order to get back to Goodford with the house-party in a carriage.
A little before six on the Sunday evening I was leaning with Miss Emily over a bridge in the north park when he came to us on his way to the rendezvous, spoke a few words, said he was going farther, and made me a signal with the eyes to be mum. Twice he waved back at us as he went forward; once and again I saw him stop to bend over a hedge-flower. He was rather pale. I had long understood that his heart was not strong, as small exertions would sometimes put him out of breath.
Miss Emily, for her part, had consented to be one of the party of excursionists, so after half-an-hour at the bridge she and I climbed the rising ground to the house to go to the church.