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With this light luggage he crawled down the little Norfolk rivers, intending to reach the Broads at last, but meanwhile delighting in the overhanging gardens and meadows, the mirrored mansions or villages, lingering to fish in the pools and corners, and in some sense hugging the shore. Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim in his holiday; but, like a true philosopher, he had an excuse.
"So Flambeau said," he replied, with a sigh. "But consider. The more a man feels lonely the less he can be sure he is alone. It must mean empty spaces round him, and they are just what make him obvious. Have you never seen one ploughman from the heights, or one shepherd from the valleys? Have you never walked along a cliff, and seen one man walking along the sands?
From the floor he arose, holding the flambeau in one hand, the bottle of alcohol in the other. "Come now," bade he, and raised the torch on high to light her way, "You're still determined to go?" For an answer she nodded. Her eyes gleamed by the uncanny light. And so, together, he leading out of the room and along the wrecked hall, they started on their trip of exploration out into the unknown.
"I have found what was sometimes more important. The Sacrifice." "What the devil do you mean?" cried Flambeau, quite alarmed. Father Brown did not answer. He was staring, with a knot in his forehead, at the landscape; and he suddenly pointed at it. "What's that house over there?" he asked.
Nevertheless they had obeyed him like automata; for Craven found a hatchet in his hand, and the warrant in his pocket; Flambeau was carrying the heavy spade of the strange gardener; Father Brown was carrying the little gilt book from which had been torn the name of God. The path up the hill to the churchyard was crooked but short; only under that stress of wind it seemed laborious and long.
Am I punished by miracle? or how can anyone but Philip and myself know I gave him a tiny coin in the middle of the sea?" "It is an extraordinary problem," admitted Flambeau. "Not so extraordinary as the answer," remarked Father Brown rather gloomily. "Miss Carstairs, will you be at home if we call at your Fulham place in an hour and a half hence?"
He had a flambeau of twisted bark in one hand to give light; but, when he came to take out the fish, he did not know how to manage to hold the light, so he took off his garters, and tied them tight round his head, and then placed the lighted flambeau above his forehead, so that it was firmly held by the bandage, and threw its light brilliantly about him.
Flambeau began to stamp forward with an intolerance of delay in time or space; but Father Brown went on as if he were continuing the last sentence: "Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already said, was a man who read his Bible. That was what was the matter with him. When will people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible unless he also reads everybody else's Bible?
"Ah, the beautiful land!" By that time the flambeau was blazing not two hundred yards ahead of us. The current had caught us, and the waves of the running tide came almost to the gunwale of the boat. Bettina had risen to her feet, leaving her hat, vizard, and cloak in the bottom of the boat, and was standing on the stern thwart, her back towards us and her face up-stream.
Young men danced before them, blowing upon reeds, hooting, yelling, rattling beans in gourds and touching hands and feet. One day was like another, and the nights were made brilliant with flambeau dances and processions.
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