The Christian: A Story

by Sir Hall Caine

Paul nodded. Since the plan of escape had been projected he had lost all will of his own and become passive and inert.

How the day lingered! And when the night came it dragged along with feet of lead! It seemed as if the hour of evening recreation would never end. Certain of the brothers who had been away on preaching missions throughout the country had returned for the Feast of the Circumcision, and the house was bright with fresh faces and cheerful voices. John thought he had never before heard so much laughter in the monastery.

But the bell rang for Compline, and the brothers passed into church. It was a cold night, the snow was trodden hard, and the wind was rising. The service ended, and the brothers returned to the house with clasped hands and passed up to their cells in silence, leaving Brother Paul at his penance in the church.

Finally the Father put up his hood and went out to lock the gate, and the dog, who took this for his signal, shambled up and followed him. When he returned he shuddered and shrugged his shoulders.

“A bitter night, my son,” he said. “It's like courting death to go out in it. Heaven help all homeless wanderers on a night like this!”

He was wiping the snow from his slippers.

“So this is the last day of your penance, Brother Storm, and to-morrow morning you will join us in the community room. You have done well; you have fought a good fight and resisted the assaults of Satan. Good-night to you, my son, and God bless you!”

He took a few steps forward and then stopped. “By the way, I promised you the Life of Père Lacordaire, and you might come to my room and fetch it.”

The Father's room was on the ground floor to the left of the staircase, and it was entered from a corridor which cut the house across the middle. The rooms that opened out of this corridor to the front looked on the courtyard, and those to the back looked across the City in the direction of the Thames. The Father's room opened to the back. It was as bare of ornament as any of the cells, but it had a small fire, and a writing-table on which a lamp was burning.

As they entered the room together the Father hung the key of the gate on one of many hooks above the bed. It was the third hook from the end nearest the window, and the key was an old one with very few wards. John watched all this, and even observed that there were books on the floor, and that a man might stumble if he did not walk warily. The Father picked up one of them.