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§ 5

When he came to Leasan the sun was already low, a reddish ball above the little houses and the darkness of Lordine Wood. The church steeple rose in a black tapering shaft against the glow, and from it came the plaint of its ancient bell. He must hurry, or there would not be light enough to read Evening Prayers.

He went in, and the sunset followed him, painting the whitewashed walls of the little bare place with fiery colours, and lighting up into another sun the great brass alms dish that stood upon the altar. He loved his church, with its dim smell of devotion, and suffered his first renunciatory pang when he thought that he must leave it, that perhaps it would be many weeks before a stranger should stand reading prayers to Tom Synden the clerk and old Goody Munskull. . . . No doubt there were many things more glorious than that, but he would miss the godly order of his days, and his honourable position as Parson of the parish, free to stand up in his pulpit and say what he liked, even to his brother the Squire. . . . King of his own little kingdom. His heart sank, heavy with the thought of his sacrifice for conscience's sake.