United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Nobody can live with matchboarded walls and ceilings and not suffer for it," Hett went on. "Why didn't you buy an old tithe barn and live in that? It's an insult to Almighty God to worship Him in such surroundings." "This is only a beginning," Mark pointed out. "A very bad beginning," Hett growled. "Such brutalizing ugliness would be inexcusable if you were leading an active life.
I'm astonished at Charles Horner. I thought he knew better than to encourage this kind of abomination." There was only one answer to make to Hett, which was that the religious life of the Community did not depend upon any externals, least of all upon its lodging; but when Mark tried to frame this answer, his lips would not utter the words.
Andrew Hett revived in Mark his admiration of the bigot, which would have been a dangerous thing to lose in one's early twenties. The chaplain was a young man of perhaps thirty-five, tall, raw-boned, sandy-haired, with a complexion of extreme pallor. His light-blue eyes were very red round the rims, and what eyebrows he possessed slanted up at a diabolic angle.
"But I understood that Andrew Hett had undertaken the job while Father Burrowes was away." Mark did not think that it was his duty to enlighten Sir Charles upon the dispute between Brother George and the chaplain. However, it was not long before he found out what had occurred from the Prior's own lips and came fuming back to the Guest-chamber.
Owing to an unfortunate disagreement between Brother George and the Reverend Andrew Hett, who came down to act as chaplain during the absence of the Reverend Father, Andrew Hett felt obliged to leave us. The consequence is we have had no Mass this Easter, and thus I have learned with my soul to need God.
The Prior had questioned the policy of engaging Andrew Hett as Chaplain, even for so brief a period as a month. He argued that, inasmuch as the Bishop of Silchester had twice refused to licence him to parishes in the diocese, it would prejudice the Bishop against the Order of St. George, and might lead to his inhibiting the Father Superior later on, should an excuse present itself.
"My point is that any communication with a notorious ecclesiastical outlaw like this fellow Hett is liable to react unfavourably upon us. Why can't we get down somebody else? There must be a number of unemployed elderly priests who would be glad of the holiday." "I'm afraid that I've offered Hett the job now, so let us make up our minds to be content."
"Andrew Hett is famous," declared Brother Raymond at the pitch of exultation. "It was he who told the Bishop of Ipswich that if the Bishop made him give up Benediction he would give up singing Morning and Evening Prayer." "That must have upset the Bishop," said Mark. "I suppose he resigned his bishopric."
George and perceived that the dragon's expression bore a distinct resemblance to that of the Reverend Andrew Hett. That night it seemed to Mark, in one of those waking trances that occur like dreams between one disturbed sleep and another, that the presence of the chaplain was shaking the flimsy foundations of the Abbey with such ruthlessness that the whole structure must soon collapse.
However, useless regrets for his indecision in the matter of the priory at Aldershot were soon obliterated by a new cause of division, which was the arrival of the Reverend Andrew Hett on the Vigil of the Annunciation, just in time to sing first Vespers.
Word Of The Day