One would have said that it would have been an easy matter for a priest beset by these thoughts to vindicate himself before his deacons, but Sidney did not want a hearing. If brought before the bar of their stern orthodoxy what reason could he give why sentence should not be pronounced upon him? And their verdict would break Vashti’s heart—the heart which he had striven to satisfy with the gift of his own soul.
Things must go on as they were, he could demand no explanation—nor risk precipitating the expression of any of his deacons’ doubts, for he knew, by some blind, unreasoning intuition that his spirit, upon which he had laid such burdens of deceit, would faint utterly before the ordeal. He knew that never again could he force his lips to fashion a false Profession of Faith.
Perhaps his search for the Holy Grail had been an unconscious one, yet he had drawn very near the chalice. However faint his faith in the divinity of the Cup of Christ might be, he yet felt it was far too holy to be profaned by his lips. He abased himself as one who had partaken unworthily.
There is an old parable anent those who pray at the street corners, and he who does not dare even to lift up his eyes.
Sidney turned away from the mute condemnation of the village to the bosom of the hill, and presently found himself over the crest and in the hillside pasture where Lanty’s young horses kicked up their heels and tossed their heads, in the arrogant freedom of two-year-olds.
Sidney paused and held out his hands to them, uttering little peculiar calls, and they came to him, at first fearfully, then more confidently, and at last with the boldness of happy ignorance; they did not know yet that man’s hand imposes the bridle and the bit.
Sidney had a great fascination for dumb creatures whose instinct distinguishes the real love from the false so much more surely than does our reason. As Sidney stroked their velvety noses, and talked to them, and let them lip his hand, a singular expression overspread his face. For suddenly there faded from it every mark and line imprinted by experience.
The retrospect and dream of love faded from out his eyes and was replaced by the innocent look of the child who enjoys the present moment and anticipates the future with unshaken confidence, the look of one who has neither desired, nor felt, nor yearned, nor suffered. It was a strange thing—such a transformation as one sees sometimes when Death smooths out the furrows and gives back to the worn body the brow of babyhood—signing it with the solemn signet of eternal peace which never shines save above eyes closed for ever. And when our mortal eyes behold this chrism we tremble and call it unearthly, as indeed it is. And this halo shone upon Sidney’s countenance as he fondled the young horses, and talked to them as to brothers, and presently looking at them he began to question them.