The Boys,
Nine Or Ten Sturdy Little Rustics With Round Sunburnt West
Country Faces, Were Playing The Roughest Game Ever Witnessed
In A Church.
Some were engaged in a sort of flying fight,
madly pursuing one another up and down the aisles and over the
pews, and whenever one overtook another he would seize hold of
him and they would struggle together until one was thrown and
received a vigorous pommelling.
Those who were not fighting
were dancing to the music. It was great fun to them, and they
were shouting and laughing their loudest only not a sound of
it all could be heard on account of the thunderous roar of the
organ which filled and seemed to make the whole building
tremble. The boys took no notice of me, and seeing that there
was a singularly fine west window, I went to it and stood
there some time with my back to the game which was going on at
the other end of the building, admiring the beautiful colours
and trying to make out the subjects depicted. In the centre
part, lit by the after-glow in the sky to a wonderful
brilliance, was the figure of a saint, a lovely young woman in
a blue robe with an abundance of loose golden-red hair and an
aureole about her head. Her pale face wore a sweet and placid
expression, and her eyes of a pure forget-me-not blue were
looking straight into mine. As I stood there the music, or
noise, ceased and a very profound silence followed - not a
giggle, not a whisper from the outrageous young barbarians,
and not a sound of the organist or of anyone speaking to them.
Presently I became conscious of some person standing almost
but not quite abreast of me, and turning sharply I found a
clergyman at my side. He was the vicar, the person who had
been letting himself go on the organ; a slight man with a
handsome, pale, ascetic face, clean-shaven, very dark-eyed,
looking more like an Italian monk or priest than an English
clergyman. But although rigidly ecclesiastic in his
appearance and dress, there was something curiously engaging
in him, along with a subtle look which it was not easy to
fathom. There was a light in his dark eyes which reminded me
of a flame seen through a smoked glass or a thin black veil,
and a slight restless movement about the corners of his mouth
as if a smile was just on the point of breaking out. But it
never quite came; he kept his gravity even when he said things
which would have gone very well with a smile.
"I see," he spoke, and his penetrating musical voice had, too,
like his eyes and mouth, an expression of mystery in it, "that
you are admiring our beautiful west window, especially the
figure in the centre. It is quite new - everything is new
here - the church itself was only built a few years ago.
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