Читать книгу: «An English Squire», страница 27
With Alvar it was different. In one way, he had with him much less sense of self-restraint, and in another, things lay between them that must be cleared away.
This state of things lasted for several days, and all the while the hard struggle between the remedies and the disease went on, a hand-to-hand fight indeed, and Cheriton’s strength ebbed away, till he knew that he dared wait no longer for what he wanted to say.
It had been raining, but the yellow, level light of an October evening was shining through the thinly-clothed boughs of the great elms, and lighting up the russet and amber of the woodlands; while the purple hills beyond were still heavy with clouds – clouds receding more and more as the clear blue spread over the sky.
As Cheriton listened to the noise of the rooks, and looked out at the sunset, he recalled the awe and strange curiosity, the clinging to the dear home, to the dearer love which had made life so dear; the attempted submission, the dim trust that death, if it came, must be well for him, with which he had first said to himself that he must die; remembered, too, other hours, when, in weakness of body and anguish of soul, he had found it still harder to believe that it must be well for him that he should live. The passionate joy, the passionate sorrow, had passed away, or rather, had been offered at last as a willing sacrifice, and the loving kindly spirit had found sweetness in life without the first, while much anxiety, much trying disappointment, had succeeded to the second. Now there came over him a wonderful peace, as he summoned his strength for what he had in his mind to say.
With a look and sign he called Alvar over to him; and Jack, who was sitting apart in the window, watched and listened.
“Alvar,” he said, taking hold of his hand, “I see it clearly.” And the intent, wide-open eyes, seemed to Jack as if they could indeed look beyond the mists of life. “We were wrong to wish you like ourselves. Forgive me. You – yourself – can be as good for Oakby as – I – yes – as my father. But there is only one way for us both – to love God with all our hearts, and our neighbour as ourself. To take pains about it for His sake. That is the truth, Alvar – the truth as I know it!”
“Ah!” cried Alvar, “but I do not love my neighbours! that is the difference. But I love you, oh! my brother – my brother! Is it religion that will make me what you wish? I will be religious; I will no longer be careless; but oh, caro – caro mio! if I lose you, I have no heart to change. I have grieved you. Oh! what punishment is there for me? I would do penance like Manoel. What can I do?”
Alvar flung himself on his knees, the tears started in his eyes and choked his voice. At last he was stirred to the depths, and instincts deeper than teaching or training came to the surface.
“You know Who bore our sins for us,” said Cheriton, “because He loved us.”
How much, or how little, Alvar knew, after his formal teaching, and careless, unmoved youth, would be hard to say; probably Cheriton could not conceive how little; but face, voice, and manner had moved Alvar’s soul to a great conviction, however little he realised what Cheriton had meant to say.
He called on that name which his brothers had never heard from his lips before, save in some careless foreign oath.
“I swear,” he said – “I swear that I will be a religious man, and that I will be a good squire to Oakby. I make it a vow if my brother recovers – ”
“Oh, hush – hush!” interposed Cheriton. “If not – we shall meet again – and you must be good to Oakby. Let me know you will!”
“I will! I will!” cried Alvar, completely carried away. He would have thrown his arms round Cheriton, but Jack interposed —
“Alvar! Alvar! this is enough. He must not have this agitation.” Alvar yielded, but, too much overcome to control himself, rushed out of the room.
As he hurried blindly down the stairs he met Mr Ellesmere, and with a sudden impulse caught hold of his hand.
“Mr Ellesmere, you are a priest. I have sworn to him that I will change, that I will be religious. I give myself up to you. I will do whatever you wish. I swear to obey you – ”
“Gently, gently!” said the astonished vicar. “You are too much agitated to know what you say. Come with me into the study; tell me what has passed. Believe me that I desire to help you in this great sorrow.”
Alvar followed him, and as Mr Ellesmere talked and listened to him, he began to hope that, in spite of an ignorance which he had hitherto had neither the conscientious desire nor the intellectual curiosity to diminish, in spite of blind impulses rashly followed, the will for good that must bring a blessing had at last been awakened, even in this strange longing for vow and penance, an instinct that seemed inherited without the faith from which it had sprung. Alvar was in the mood which might have made his Spanish ancestors vow all their worldly goods away and think to buy a blessing, and to listen to him without unduly checking his vehemence, and yet to lead his thoughts upward, was a hard task; since Alvar was left subdued and quieted, and yet with an inkling of what had been really wrong with him, it may be inferred that Mr Ellesmere succeeded better than he had hoped to do.
Meanwhile, to poor Jack, every word of Cheriton’s had thrilled with a thousand meanings. He knew that silence was imperative, and did not mean to say another word; but Cherry felt his hand tremble as he gave him some water, and looked up at him with a smile.
“You will have Gipsy soon,” he whispered, “my own dear boy.”
Jack pressed his hand. “To take pains for His sake.” With his whole heart Jack recognised this key-note. Nothing else would do. Even Gipsy could not by herself give his life the full joy of a sufficient purpose; but as he thought of all the currents through which he must steer, and knew too well which way they often set, he shuddered.
“If I had not you to talk everything out with!” he said, inadequately enough.
“Oh, Jack, if I can’t help you still, it will be because the work is done better. I don’t fancy now that everything hangs on me. I am content.”
And Jack felt that the memory of that perfect contentment could never pass away from him.
Chapter Ten.
My Lady and My Queen
“Let all be well – be well.”
“So, Queenie, you see there will soon be an end of it all!”
The speaker was Miss Seyton. She stood looking down at her niece with an odd quiver in lip and voice, even while her tone was not altogether a sad one. Virginia sat in dismayed silence; she had been arranging a bunch of autumn leaves and berries to brighten up the dark old drawing-room, which bore many a trace of her presence in bits of needlework and tokens of pleasant occupation, though the house was duller and quieter than ever now that Mr Seyton’s rapidly failing health gave him the habits of an invalid, and that both the boys were absent. Miss Seyton looked more faded than ever, but she was kind and friendly with Virginia, even though she could not divest her voice of its sarcastic tone as she continued, —
“You are a person of consequence, and you ought to understand the state of the case.”
“That Roland means to sell Elderthwaite?” said Virginia, slowly.
“Yes. We can’t afford, Virginia, to make pretences to each other, and we know that it will come before many months. Then what are we to do?”
However much it went against Virginia to discuss the results of her father’s death, she felt that there was some truth in her aunt’s words, that they ought to be prepared for so great a change; and she had also learnt to practise great directness in dealing with Miss Seyton.
“I have sometimes supposed that you would live at the vicarage, Aunt Julia,” she said.
“Not if I have a penny to live on elsewhere,” replied Miss Seyton. “James and I were never friends, and I’ll not see the place in the hands of strangers. Besides, I’ve had a thirty years’ imprisonment, and I’d like my freedom. Look here – when I was a girl I was just like the others; I loved pleasure as well as they did, and had it too. I was as daring as ever a Seyton of them all. However, I meant to marry and live in the south, and I was quite good enough, my dear, for the man I was engaged to. Then he quarrelled with James, and that began the breach. I didn’t marry, as you may see, and when my father died my portion couldn’t be paid off without a sale, and things were in such a mess I had no power to claim it. So here I stayed, and, let me tell you, I’ve stopped up a good many holes, and been quite as great a blessing to my family as they deserved.”
Virginia laughed in spite of herself, though her answer was grave.
“Yes, I know that, now.”
“But now, d’ye see, Virginia, I’m tired of it. I’m only fifty, and it’ll go hard if I don’t get some pickings out of the sale of the estate. Do you know, we have some old cousins living in Bath, a Ruth and Virginia of another generation? I’m inclined to think I should like to go into society – to ‘come out,’ in fact, in a smart cap, and to live within reach of a circulating library and scandal. That’s my view, and that’s what I mean to aim at when the time comes. What do you say?”
“I should like the boys to have a home somehow,” said Virginia. “Perhaps that would make some place into home for me.”
“I don’t wish to desert you,” said Miss Seyton, “but candidly I think we should be happier apart. We shouldn’t amuse each other if we lived together. But won’t James want to keep you?”
“I don’t know,” said Virginia. “I am afraid it would not be a good plan for the boys to go there for holidays – if this place is to be given up. But oh, Aunt Julia, how can we tell what will happen? I can’t make plans; I don’t feel as if it mattered; and Roland seems to want to cast us all off.”
“Yes; he’s a selfish fellow. But, my dear, just consider how much worse it would be, if we had to take him on. Thank your stars that he means to stay in India. And as for the place, with its paint and its fences and its broken glass, let it go. We’re better free of it. He is right, there. The worst part of the story is poor old James who must stay.”
“He can’t forgive Roland.”
“No – you see, Queenie, it’s wits that tell. – James hasn’t brains, and he has never thought of cutting himself loose. He couldn’t live away from Elderthwaite, any more than he could live without his skin. But when he hasn’t the family dignity to keep him up, I’m afraid he’ll go down.”
“He is so wretched now about Cheriton Lester.”
“Yes. He is the only Lester worth fretting for. As for that prig Jack, I’d like to see him make a fool of himself. I’d like to see him ‘exceed his allowance considerably.’ There’s a pretty way of putting it for you!”
With which parting shot Miss Seyton went away, and Virginia sat sorrowful and perplexed, and with something of the family bitterness in her heart. Life was very hard to her. Her love for each one of her relations was a triumph over difficulties, and the sweet spontaneous passion that had promised to make her happy had been in its turn triumphed over by the uncongeniality of her lover. The softness of early youth and of her previous training had been replaced by something of the strength that expects little and makes the best of a bad business, but at a risk, the risk of the sense that evil is inevitable. Virginia was always outwardly gentle; but she had been thrown back on herself till she had gained a self-reliance that the Seyton blood in her was ready to exaggerate into scorn. For even Ruth was slow in answering her letters, and never wrote as in her girlish days.
As she sat musing a note was brought to her. It was from Mrs Lester, containing Cheriton’s imperative request that she would come and see him. Would she come at once?
Virginia’s cheeks flamed as if the missive had been from Alvar himself. She got up and put the note in her pocket, dressed herself, and leaving word with one of the servants that she meant to take a walk, set forth without delay for Oakby, walking through the plantations, across the fell, and through the fir-wood, as she had scarcely ever done alone before. She remembered going as Alvar’s betrothed to ask for Cheriton during his first illness, and Alvar’s absorption and indifference to her presence. Now that would be natural enough. Still she could scarcely think of Cheriton in her dread and wonder as to who might greet her, as she rang at the bell, and asked for Mrs Lester, who came forward into the hall to receive her.
“My dear,” she said, “I do not know what Cherry wants with you; but we can’t refuse him. Will you come at once?”
Virginia was afraid to ask questions, she followed the old lady’s slow progress up the dusky staircase, and into Cheriton’s room.
The daylight was now fast fading, but its last rays fell on Cheriton’s wide-opened eyes and flushed face.
He took hold of her hand, and said with extreme difficulty, —
“Thank you – my love to the parson. Ask Jack what I meant to do – and then tell him. Tell him – I say – he must reform Elderthwaite for my sake. He must do it himself. I know he can. Don’t let him be one of the abuses. Don’t get into despair.” He paused for breath, and then with an accent and smile that through all the suffering had something of his old playful daring, “I mustn’t say anything else to you, but that will come right too.”
“I will tell him,” faltered Virginia, awed, bewildered, and yet with a strange sense of encouragement; she let herself be drawn away, heard Mrs Lester say that it was too dark for her to go home alone, she should send Jack with her to get a breath of air, while Cherry was suffering less. He was so fully himself it was hard to believe in the danger, but the attacks of coughing were most exhausting, and he could hardly take anything, she was very hopeless, and “my grandson” – this always meant Alvar – thought badly of him. “Come in here, my dear, and I will fetch Jack.”
As Mrs Lester put her into the library, and left her there alone in the dusk, the tears that she had hitherto restrained broke forth.
She thought that she was crying for Cheriton, but all her own sad future, all her yearnings for the lost past, mingled together, and she wept the more because, she knew not how, Cheriton had given her a sort of indefinite comfort.
She did not hear the study door open, nor see Alvar come through the room, nor did he see her in the dim light, till he heard her sobbing.
“Who is it?” he exclaimed, becoming aware of a woman’s figure near the fire. She started up, and with her first movement he knew her. “Mi dona!” he cried in his astonishment.
“Cherry asked to see me,” she faltered. “He is so ill – I could not help crying.”
“Ah, no!” said Alvar; “and I may not comfort you!”
But he came close and stood by her side, and she saw that he too was greatly agitated. She wanted to speak about Cheriton, but she could not command her voice, nor think of a word to say.
Suddenly Alvar turned and clasped her hand.
“Ah!” he cried, with such vehemence as she had never seen in him before. “My heart is breaking! Can you never forgive? I love you; I have always loved you. When you sent me from you, it was my pride that let me submit! In my own country I knew that for your sake I was English – English altogether. I am not worthy, but I repent. I have confessed. Help me, and I will be a good Englishman! For I have now no other country, and I cannot live without you. Give me your hand once more!”
Alvar poured forth this torrent with such burning eagerness, such abandonment of entreaty, that he did not see how weak were the defences he was attacking.
“Indeed,” she whispered, “it was not that– not that I thought you were – not good – I thought you did not love me – much.”
“I did – I do love you – I love you as my life! But you?”
“I have always loved you. I could not change,” she said, with something of her old gentle dignity. “But – I have been very unhappy all this time.”
“Ah, now you shall be happy! Yet, what do I say? How can I make any one happy! I who have grieved and vexed my brother with my unkindness – nay, caused his illness even – I cannot make you happy!” said Alvar, in a tone of real self-blame.
“I think you can!” said Virginia softly; but the words had hardly passed her lips when she started away from him, as Jack came into the room.
“Granny says I am to walk home with you, Virginia. What, Alvar, are you here? they have been looking for you. Do go to Cherry – he is so restless now!”
“I will go,” said Alvar. “Take care of her, Jack, for I must not come. Farewell, mi regna!” He took both her hands and kissed them, then put her towards Jack, and hurried away; while poor Virginia glanced in much confusion at her escort; but he was too much absorbed in grief and anxiety to take in what had passed, or to heed it if he did. He walked on by her side without speaking; till she, trying to collect her thoughts, and actuated by a very unnecessary fear of what he would think of her silence, bethought herself to ask him what Cheriton wished her to tell her uncle.
“He said I was to ask you?”
“He wanted to take orders, and be curate of Elderthwaite,” said Jack. “You know London did not suit him, and the work was too hard, and life at home was so worrying for him. Besides, he hated being idle. He thought that he could manage to get things right at Elderthwaite, and he said that he should like it, and be happy there.”
Jack spoke in a dull, heavy voice, his use of the past tense marking how completely he regarded the possibilities of which he spoke as at an end; and something in the tone showing that the proposal had been distasteful to him.
“Would Cherry have given himself for that?” exclaimed Virginia.
“Yes,” said Jack. “I didn’t like it. It seemed a great sacrifice, and besides – he was not half strong enough.”
“But did he care so much? I don’t mean that I can’t understand his wishing to take orders – but just for Elderthwaite!”
“He is very fond of Elderthwaite. And he said that it was only because he fancied that he could be more useful there than any one else; and because he has money, that he was justified in proposing it – because he was ill, I mean.”
“Indeed, he could do good there! He always did!”
“You know,” said Jack, rather more freely, “that Cherry has a notion that when a person seems specially marked out for any situation, he is likely, in the long run, to be the best person for it. He says you can’t destroy evil without good. That people fit their own places, and so he believes that Elderthwaite would do better, in the long run, if Parson Seyton could be encouraged to make things a little more ship-shape, than it would with a new man, if he were driven away. You see he gets fond of people. I don’t see it; I think it’s fanciful. All reformers begin with a clean sweep. Then Cherry said valuables were sometimes found in the dust; nobody would reform if you ran at them with a besom. Of course he could persuade people; at any rate, he always thought he could.”
“He thinks the sun is more powerful than the north wind,” said Virginia. “I am sure Uncle James would have given in to him.”
“So he said. But he was mistaken in one case, and then he blamed himself, and I suppose – I suppose – he has conquered at last! Any way, Virginia, you were to tell your uncle what he wished to do.”
“I will tell him. He is breaking his heart about Cherry now.”
“I suppose so. I can’t come in. Good-bye; we’ll send over in the morning.” Jack turned away. Cheriton’s kindly theories might seem fanciful to him; but he would never have the chance of knocking them on the head any more. He was so miserable that even the thought of Gipsy only made him feel her absence, and wonder if so bright a creature could continue to care for him, when he had grown into a stern, hard-hearted person, without any power of softening. Poor Jack’s hard heart was very heavy, and beat so fast as he came up to the house, that he could hardly ask if there was any change.
Chapter Eleven.
My Dear!
“But still be a woman to you.”
Early the next morning Virginia received a letter from Alvar, written at intervals during his night watch in Cheriton’s room. Perhaps it was the first real communication she had ever received from him, and in it he made a sort of confession of his shortcomings, as far as he himself understood them. He told her that he had been “revengeful” towards his father, and that in the affair of the Flemings he had allowed “the passion of jealousy” to overcome him. He recounted his promise to Cheriton, and with the simplicity that was at once so strange and so engaging a part of his character, assured her “that he was no longer indifferent to religion,” but would follow the instructions of Mr Ellesmere. “I think,” he added, “that this will give you pleasure.”
There was a great deal about Cheriton, Alvar declaring that he could not now despair of anything, but that he should have written to her at such a time, and about himself, was enough to mark the change in his former relations with Virginia.
The change in himself she was ready to take for granted. All must be right where there was such humility and power of repentance; and perhaps she did him more justice than even Cheriton could have done. For Alvar had undergone no change of intellectual conviction, that element was wanting, both in his former carelessness, and in his present acceptance of a new obligation, and in the excitement of feeling under which he was acting love and remorse towards his brother had the largest share. But he had recognised himself as erring, and intended to amend, and such a resolution must bring a blessing. But as his brothers would only have altered any settled line of conduct, after infinite heart-searchings and perplexities, they could not have conceived how simple the matter appeared to Alvar, when he had once made up his mind that he could possibly have been in fault.
Virginia had said nothing the night before of her changed prospects; she knew that the Lesters could have no thought to spare for her; but when her aunt suggested sending over to inquire, she could not pretend ignorance, and her blush and few words of explanation were enough for Miss Seyton.
“Ah, well,” she said, “you might have saved yourselves a great deal of trouble if you had found this out a little sooner.”
“We cannot speak of it just now, auntie.”
“No; but you say, don’t you, that everything happens for good? Now this good has come out of Cherry’s illness; perhaps he’ll get well.”
After these characteristic congratulations Virginia took her way to the vicarage. She found her uncle in his “study,” a room which was sufficiently well lined with ancient and orthodox divinity to merit the name, though the highly respectable volumes, descended from some unwontedly learned Seyton vicar, did not often see the light.
The parson was looking out of the window down the road.
“Ah, how d’ye do, my dear?” he said, in unwontedly quiet accents. “I was just looking out, for I sent over to Oakby to inquire how that poor lad is to-day.”
“We have heard,” said Virginia. “I don’t think he is any worse. And, uncle, I saw him yesterday; he sent for me to give me a message for you.”
“A message! Well, my lassie, what did he say?”
Virginia came and stood behind the chair in which her uncle had seated himself.
“He wished me to tell you that he had been making up his mind to take orders, and that he loved Elderthwaite so much that he meant to ask you if you would let him come and be your curate, that you and he together might set things right here. But he said that now that will never be. And he sent his love, and I was to ask you to reform Elderthwaite for his sake. He said, ‘Tell him I know he can, better than any one, if he will.’”
Virginia paused, as her voice faltered.
“Why, bless my soul,” cried the parson, “what does the lad mean? Why, I’m one of the old abuses myself.”
“Yes – yes – uncle. But that is what he said. You must not be one of the abuses. He said you might do it all, if you would, because you love the place more than any one can.”
There was a silence. The parson sat still.
“He is a good lad – he always was a good lad,” he said, after a pause. “And did he think to come here, to spend his time over a parcel of scamps and drunkards? Eh! I shouldn’t have believed it. He had heard that they want me to have a curate, I suppose,” he added, quickly.
“Oh, yes, uncle; but he was afraid that you would not like it.”
“Look here, my lassie, I like the old methody in his proper place; but I’ll have no psalm-singers in my church. I’m a sound Churchman, and I don’t approve of it.”
Virginia, finding an objection to psalm-singing in church rather difficult to reply to, was silent, and her uncle went on rapidly, —
“I hate the whole tribe of your earnest, hard-working, ‘self-devoted’ young fellows – find it pay, and bring them into the society of gentlemen – write letters in trumpery newspapers, and despise their elders. Newspapers have nothing to do with religion. The Prayer-book’s the Prayer-book, and a paper’s a paper. Give me Bell’s Life. Bless you, my dear, do you think I keep my eyes shut?”
“You are not just, uncle,” said Virginia. “But Cheriton would not have been like that.”
Mr Seyton’s twinkling eyes softened, and the angry resistance to a higher standard, that mingled with the half-shrewd, half-scornful malice of his words, subsided, as he said, in quite a different tone, —
“I would have had Cheriton for my curate, my dear.”
He said no more, and Virginia could not press him; and when he spoke it was only to question her about Cheriton’s condition.
But when she went away he took his hat and walked out through his bit of garden towards the church, and sitting down on the low stone wall, looked over the churchyard, where a fine growth of nettles half smothered the broken gravestones; and as he sat there he thought of his past life, of his dissipated, godless youth, of the sense of desperation with which, to pay his debts, he had “gone into the Church,” of the horrible evils he had never tried to check, and yet of the certain kindliness he had entertained towards his own people. How he had defied censure and resisted example till his fellow-clergy looked askance at him, and though he might affect to despise them, he did not like their contempt. He thought of the family crash that was coming, and he was keen enough to know how he would be regarded by new comers – “as an old abuse.” And he thought of Cheriton’s faith in him, and the project inspired as much by love for him as by the zeal for reform. He thought of the first time he had read the service, the sense of incongruity, of shame-facedness; how a sort of accustomedness had grown upon him till he had felt himself a parson after a sort, and how, on a low level, he had in a way adapted his life to the requirements of his profession.
Then he thought of the way Cheriton had proposed such a step to himself, and, without entering into any of those higher feelings which might have repelled rather than attracted him, he contrasted with his his own the unselfishness of the motive that prompted Cheriton.
He made no resolutions, drew no conclusions, but unconsciously he was looking at life from a new standpoint.
Virginia did not see Alvar, nor hear directly from him all that day; and but for the letter in her possession, her interview with him would have seemed like a dream.
The next morning was sunny and still. She stood on the steps at the garden door, looking over the lawn, now glistening with thick autumn dew. The sky was clear and blue, the wild overgrown shrubberies that shut out the landscape were tinted with brown and gold, an “autumn blackbird” sang low and sweet. All was so peaceful that it seemed as if ill news could not break in upon it; yet, as the old church clock chimed the hour, and through the still air that of Oakby sounded in the distance, Virginia started lest it should be the beginning of the knell. As the sound of the clock died away, the gate in the shrubbery clicked, a quick step sounded, and Alvar came up the path.
Virginia could wait no longer. She ran to meet him, gathering hope from his face as she approached.
“Yes, he is better. There is hope now; but all yesterday he grew weaker every moment. I thought he would die.”
Alvar’s voice trembled, and he spoke with more abandonment than was usual with him; he looked very pale, and had evidently gone through much. He added details of their suspense, and of Cherry’s condition, “as if,” Virginia thought, “he wanted to talk to me.”
“You are very tired,” she said. “Come in and have some breakfast. Auntie and I always have it here.”
She took him into the drawing-room, where there was a little table near the fire, and made him sit down, while she waited on him, and poured out the tea. She did not feel a bit afraid of him now, and, spite of his punctilious gallantry, he submitted to her attentions without any of the forms and ceremonies with which he had previously made a distance between them.
“You have been up all night. I think you ought to have gone to bed, instead of coming here,” she said, sure of a contradiction.
“It is a great deal better than going to sleep to see you, my dear!” said Alvar, quaintly; and Virginia thought she liked the homely English better than the magnificent Spanish in which he had been wont to term her his lady and his queen.
“I am getting very hungry, Virginia,” said Miss Seyton, opening the door. “May I come in to breakfast?”
“Oh, but that is shocking!” cried Alvar, springing up and advancing to meet her. “Miss Seyton, I have brought good news of my brother. But I must go home now, he may want me. Perhaps if he is still better I can come again by-and-by.”
“Only think,” said Virginia, as she went with him through the garden on her way to the vicarage to tell the good news to her uncle, “only think, when the clock struck just before you came, I was afraid it was the beginning of the knell!”
“Ah, I trust we shall not hear that terrible sound now!” said Alvar, gravely.
And yet before that day closed the old bell of Elderthwaite church was tolling, startling every one with the sudden conviction that that morning’s hope had proved delusory. It frightened Mr Ellesmere as he came home from a distant part of his parish, though a moment’s reflection showed him that his own church tower was silent. What could be the matter elsewhere?
