For a long time after he ceased speaking there was silence, for Hyacinth had no comment to offer. At last the old man spoke again.
‘That is all. I have no other word of revelation. But I have wondered since how men are to be disentangled from their parties and their churches and their nations, and gathered simply into good and bad. Will all men who are good just know the Captain when they see Him and range themselves with Him? But why should we think about such things as these? Doubtless He can order them. But you, Hyacinth--will you be sure to know the good side from the bad, the Captain from the enemy?’
For a long time after he had gone to bed Hyacinth lay awake haunted by his father’s prophecy of an Armageddon. There was that in his nature which responded eagerly to such a call to battle. In the presence of enthusiasm like his father’s or like Augusta Goold’s, Hyacinth caught fire. His mind flamed with the idea of an Independent Ireland resplendent with her ancient glories. He embraced no less eagerly the thought of his father’s battle and his own part in it. Groping for points of contact between the two enthusiasms, he caught at the conception of the Roman Church as the Antichrist and her power in Ireland as the point round which the fight must rage. Then with a sudden flash he saw, not Rome, but the British Empire, as the embodiment of the power of darkness. He had learned to think of it as a force, greedy, materialistic, tyrannous, grossly hypocritical. What more was required to satisfy the conception of evil that he sought for? He remembered all that he had ever heard from Augusta Goold and her friends about the shameless trickery of English statesmen, about the insatiable greed of the merchants, about the degraded sensuality of the workers. He recalled the blatant boastfulness with which English demagogues claimed to be the sole possessors of enlightened consciences, and the tales of native races exploited, gin-poisoned, and annihilated by pioneers of civilization advancing with Bibles in their hands.
But with all his capacity for enthusiasm there was a strain of weakness in Hyacinth. More than once after the glories of an Independent Ireland had been preached to him he had found himself growing suddenly cold and dejected, smitten by an east wind of common-sense. At the time when he first recognised the loftiness of his father’s religion he had revolted against being called upon to adopt so fantastic a creed. So now, when his mind grew weary with the endeavour to set an Armageddon in array, he began to wish for a life of peaceful monotony, a place to be quiet in, where no high calls or imperious demands would come to threaten him. He ceased to toss to and fro, and gradually sank into a half-conscious sleep. It seemed to him at the time that he was still awake, held back from slumber by the great stillness of the country, that silence which disturbs ears long accustomed to the continuous roar of towns. Suddenly he started into perfect wakefulness, and felt that he was in possession of all his faculties. The room where he lay was quite dark, but he strained his eyes to see something in it. He listened intently, although no sound whatever met his ears. A great overmastering fear laid hold on him. He tried to reason with himself, insisting that there was nothing, and could be nothing, to be afraid of. Still the fear remained. His lips grew stiff and painfully hot, and when he tried to moisten them his tongue was dry and moved across them raspingly. He struggled with the terror that paralyzed him, and by a great effort raised his hand to his forehead. It was damp and cold, and the hair above it was damp. He had no way of knowing how much of the night had passed, or even how long he lay rigid, unable to breathe without a kind of pain; but suddenly as it had come the terror left him, left him without any effort on his part or any reason that he recognised. Then the window of his room shook, and he heard outside the low moan of the rising wind. Some heavy drops of rain struck audibly on the roof, and the first gust of the storm carried to his ears the sound of waves beating on the rocks. His senses strained no more. His eyes closed, and he sank quietly into a long dreamless sleep.