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He was half laughing as he spoke, but in his heart was an angry feeling of loneliness. He felt lonely in the midst of their chattering ignorance; their pretty, smiling faces were mere masks—there was no human brain behind them to understand him. He was alone among masks.

§ 8

The next day he went over to Conster as soon as he had read Morning Prayers. He went as usual on foot, for unless the way were very long he would always rather walk than ride, and Conster was barely two miles from Leasan. He walked at a great pace and his mind moved faster than his legs. Striding along with his holly stick in his hand and his cassock bunched round his middle, his thoughts were on horseback, galloping ahead of him; whereas when he rode a horse his thoughts crawled only at a foot pace.

To-day his thoughts were cavalry, charging the future. He saw the Church of England in disruption—what could they do when they found that only a fraction of the clergy would take the oath? They couldn't deprive them all. And no power on earth could deprive them of their orders; Bishops and Priests would remain Bishops and Priests, the ministry of the new church—the bones of the Phoenix. . . . Schism? Nay, the schism lay with those who intruded their swearing nominees into sees and cures already occupied by men too loyal and logical to swear . . . the men who followed Canterbury would be the ministers of the true Church of England, the others but usurpers and schismatics. . . . He was to be turned out of his living, but he would soon have something better—a bishopric maybe. He was a man of ripe age and experience—they would surely give him an important place in any new administration, all the more because he was not a Jacobite . . . he was all for William of Orange and against the Pope. . . . But he would not swear sacrilegious, unscriptural oaths . . . and he was weary of Leasan—his galloping thoughts swept down the fences that yesterday had been set about his mind—weary of a Parson's daily round, of reading prayers to old women and breathing the foul air of sickrooms. He was king of his castle—but it was only a toy castle, and his crown a paper crown. How ran the Psalm? "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord" . . . or John Milton: "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" . . . nay, that was not his meaning; but he was well rid of Leasan. He saw himself a Bishop of some newly created see, resigning at last for an honourable retirement to Conster Manor on his brother's death. . . .