A long sigh came from the organ, and then Mr. Dickinson was at work preluding Mr. Thrush. Distant steps sounded on the pavement behind the choir screen coming from some hidden place at the east end of the Cathedral. The congregation stood up. All this, in Robin’s mind, was for Mr. Thrush. Still holding his father’s hand tightly he joined in the congregation’s movement. The solemnly pacing steps drew nearer. Robin felt very small, and the pew seemed very deep to him now that he was standing up. There was a fat red footstool by his left leg. He peeped at his father and whispered:
“May I, Fa?”
Dion bent down, took him under the arms and lifted him gently on to the footstool just as the vergers appeared with their wands, walking nobly at the head of the procession.
At Welsley the ordinary vergers did not march up the choir to the return stalls, but divided and formed up in two lines at the entrance, making a dignified avenue down which the choristers and the clergy passed with calm insouciance into the full view of the waiting congregation. Only two picked men, with wands of silver, preceded the dignitaries to their massive stalls. Mr. Thrush was—though not in Robin’s eyes—an ordinary verger. He would not therefore penetrate into the choir. But, mercifully, he with one other had been placed in the forefront of the procession. He led the way, and Robin and his parents had a full and satisfying view of him as the procession curved round and made for the screen. In his dark and flowing robe he came on majestical, holding his wand quite perfectly, and looking not merely self-possessed but—as Rosamund afterwards put it—“almost uplifted.”
Robin began to breathe hard as he gazed. From Mr. Thrush’s shoulders the robe swung with his lordly movements. He reached the entrance. It seemed as if nothing could prevent him from floating on, in all the pride and dignity of his new office, to the very steps of the Dean’s stall. But discipline held him. He stood aside; he came to rest with his wand before him; he let the procession pass by, and then, almost mystically, he evaporated with his brother vergers.
Rosamund sent a quick look to Dion, a look of subdued and yet bright triumph. Then she glanced down at Robin. She had been scarcely less excited, less strung up, than he. But she had seen the fruit of her rehearsals and now she was satisfied. Robin, she saw, was more than satisfied. His eyes were round with the glory of it all.
That was the happiest Sunday Dion had ever spent, and it was fated to close in a happiness welling up out of the very deeps of the heart.
Canon Wilton and Esme Darlington came in to tea, and Mr. Thrush was entertained at a sumptuous repast in the nursery “between the services.” Robin presided at it with anxious rapture, being now just a little in awe of his faithful old friend. His nurse, who approved of Mr. Thrush, and was much impressed by the fact that after two interviews with the Dean he had been appointed to a post in the Cathedral, sat down to it too; and Rosamund and Dion looked in to congratulate Mr. Thrush, and to tell him how delighted they were with his bearing in the procession and his delicately adroit manipulation of his wand. Mr. Thrush received their earnest congratulations with the quiet dignity of one who felt that they did not spring from exaggeration of sentiment. Like all great artists he knew when he had done well. But when Rosamund and Dion were about to retire, and to leave him with Robin and the nurse to the tea and well-buttered toast, he suddenly emerged into an emotion which did him credit.
“Madame!” He said to Rosamund, in a rather hoarse and tremulous voice.
“Now don’t trouble to get up again, dear Mr. Thrush. Yes, what is it?”