"What's worrying you especially?" asked Manning, half an hour later.
"Oh, nothing much. At least, that's not right; it is much to me. Manning, it's awful. It's my father's attitude towards Catholicism."
"Ah! No time at all for it?"
"No. And he doesn't understand."
"Complain in verse," said Manning, handing him a Swinburne, "and read that. 'E'en the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.' Leave the wise to wrangle. Your line is going to be literature, my son."
CHAPTER V
VACATION
The sticks break, the stones crumble,
The eternal altars tilt and tumble,
Sanctions and tales dislimn like mist
About the amazed evangelist.
He stands unshook from age to youth
Upon one pin-point of the truth.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
(1)
Paul lay very still in the heather. An occasional bee buzzed past his face, and, high aloft, a towering hawk regarded him severely, until, satisfied that he was alive, it gave its wings an imperceptible tilt and glided swiftly away. The sun drew out the sweet scents from flowers and bracken, and a small wind brought up, now and again, a whiff of the sea.