The Captives | Page 4

God Himself, in short, may draw vital

strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. For my own part I
do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if
they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which
something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better
than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will.
But it feels like a real fight--as if there were something really wild in
the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithlessness, are
needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from
atheisms and fears . . ."
WILLIAM JAMES.

CONTENTS
PART I: BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY
I DEATH OF THE REV. CHARLES CARDINAL II AUNT ANNE III
THE LONDON HOUSE IV THE CHAPEL
PART II: THE CHARIOT OF FIRE
I THE WARLOCKS II EXPECTATION III MAGGIE AND MARTIN
IV MR. CRASHAW V THE CHOICE VI THE PROPHET IN HIS
OWN HOME VII THE OUTSIDE WORLD VIII PARADISE IX THE
INSIDE SAINTS X THE PROPHET XI THE CHARIOT OF FIRE
PART III: THE WITCH
I THE THREE VISITS II PLUNGE INTO THE OTHER HALF III
SKEATON-ON-SEA IV GRACE V THE BATTLE OF SKEATON:
FIRST YEAR VI THE BATTLE OF SKEATON: SECOND YEAR
VII DEATH OF AUNT ANNE VIII DEATH OF UNCLE MATHEW
IX SOUL OF PAUL X THE REVIVAL
PAET IV: THE JOURNEY HOME AGAIN
I THE DARK ROOM II HOBGOBLINS III THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE


PART I
BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY

CHAPTER I

DEATH OF THE REV. CHARLES CARDINAL
Death leapt upon the Rev. Charles Cardinal, Rector of St. Dreots in
South Glebeshire, at the moment that he bent down towards the second
long drawer of his washhand-stand; he bent down to find a clean collar.
It is in its way a symbol of his whole life, that death claimed him before
he could find one.
At one moment his mind was intent upon his collar; at the next he was
stricken with a wild surmise, a terror that even at that instant he would
persuade himself was exaggerated. He saw before his clouding eyes a
black pit. A strong hand striking him in the middle of his back flung
him contemptuously forward into it; a gasping cry of protest and all
was over. Had time been permitted him he would have stretched out a
hand towards the shabby black box that, true to all miserly convention,
occupied the space beneath his bed. Time was not allowed him. He
might take with him into the darkness neither money nor clean
clothing.
He had been told on many occasions about his heart, that he must not
excite nor strain it. He allowed that to pass as he allowed many other
things because his imagination was fixed upon one ambition, and one
alone. He had made, upon this last and fatal occasion, haste to find his
collar because the bell had begun its Evensong clatter and he did not
wish to-night to be late. The bell continued to ring and he lay his broad
widespread length upon the floor. He was a large and dirty man.
The shabby old house was occupied with its customary life. Down in
the kitchen Ellen the cook was snatching a moment from her labours to
drink a cup of tea. She sat at the deal table, her full bosom pressed by
the boards, her saucer balanced on her hand; she blew, with little
heaving pants, at her tea to cool it. Her thoughts were with a new hat
and some red roses with which she would trim it; she looked out with
little shivers of content at the falling winter's dusk: Anne the
kitchen-maid scoured the pans; her bony frame seemed to rattle as she
scrubbed with her red hands; she was happy because she was hungry
and there would be a beef-steak pudding for dinner. She sang to herself
as she worked.

Upstairs in the dining-room Maggie Cardinal, the only child of the Rev.
Charles, sat sewing. She hoard the jangling of the church hell; she
heard also, suddenly, with a surprise that made her heart beat for a
moment with furious leaps, a tapping on the window-pane. Then
directly after that she fancied that there came from her father's room
above the thud of some sudden fall or collapse. She listened. The bell
swallowed all other noise. She thought that she had been mistaken, but
the tapping at the window began again, now insistent; the church bell
suddenly stopped and in the silence that followed one could hear the
slight creak of some bough driven by the sea-wind against the wall.
The curtains were not drawn and where