Clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang. . . .
"Hasn't Dorward come in yet? It's five past eight already. Go on ringing for a little while. I'll go and see how long he'll be."
Mark in the absorption of ringing the bell had not noticed the Vicar's approach, and he was gone again before he remembered that he wanted to borrow a cassock and a cotta. Had he been rude? Would Mr. Ogilvie think it cheek to ring the bell without asking his permission first? But before these unanswered questions had had time to spoil the rhythm of his ringing, the Vicar came back with Mr. Dorward, and the congregation, that is to say Miss Hatchett and Miss Ogilvie, was already kneeling in its place.
Mark in a cassock that was much too long for him and in a cotta that was in the same ratio as much too short preceded Mr. Dorward from the sacristy to the altar. A fear seized him that in spite of all his practice he was kneeling on the wrong side of the priest; he forgot the first responses; he was sure the Sanctus-bell was too far away; he wished that Mr. Dorward would not mutter quite so inaudibly. Gradually, however, the meetness of the gestures prescribed for him by the ancient ritual cured his self-consciousness and included him in its pattern, so that now for the first time he was aware of the significance of the preface to the Sanctus: _It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty Everlasting God._
Twenty minutes ago when he was ringing the church bell Mark had experienced the rapture of creative noise, the sense of individual triumph over time and space; and the sound of his ringing came back to him from the vaulted roof of the church with such exultation as the missal thrush may know when he sits high above the fretted boughs of an oak and his music plunges forth upon the January wind. Now when Mark was ringing the Sanctus-bell, it was with a sense of his place in the scheme of worship. If one listens to the twitter of a single linnet in open country or to the buzz of a solitary fly upon a window pane, how incredible it is that myriads of them twittering and buzzing together should be the song of April, the murmur of June. And this Sanctus-bell that tinkled so inadequately, almost so frivolously when sounded by a server in Meade Cantorum church, was yet part of an unimaginable volume of worship that swelled in unison with Angels and Archangels lauding and magnifying the Holy Name. The importance of ceremony was as deeply impressed upon Mark that morning as if he had been formally initiated to great mysteries. His coming confirmation, which had been postponed from July 2nd to September 8th seemed much more momentous now than it seemed yesterday. It was no longer a step to Communion, but was apprehended as a Sacrament itself, and though Mr. Ogilvie was inclined to regret the ritualistic development of his catechumen, Mark derived much strength from what was really the awakening in him of a sense of form, which more than anything makes emotion durable. Perhaps Ogilvie may have been a little jealous of Dorward's influence; he also was really alarmed at the prospect, as he said, of so much fire being wasted upon poker-work. In the end what between Dorward's encouragement of Mark's ritualistic tendencies and the "spiking up" process to which he was himself being subjected, Ogilvie was glad when a fortnight later Dorward took himself off to his own living, and he expressed a hope that Mark would perceive Dorward in his true proportions as a dear good fellow, perfectly sincere, but just a little, well, not exactly mad, but so eccentric as sometimes to do more harm than good to the Movement. Mark was shrewd enough to notice that however much he grumbled about his friend's visit Mr. Ogilvie was sufficiently influenced by that visit to put into practice much of the advice to which he had taken exception. The influence of Dorward upon Mark did not stop with his begetting in him an appreciation of the value of form in worship. When Mark told Mr. Ogilvie that he intended to become a priest, Mr. Ogilvie was impressed by the manifestation of the Divine Grace, but he did not offer many practical suggestions for Mark's immediate future. Dorward on the contrary attached as much importance to the manner in which he was to become a priest.