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The white ashes of the burnt-out fire were lying in the grate; the stand of the rushlight was on the floor; the wall with its tapestry was just as it had been; the cold grey light had annihilated the fancied visions: I had been dreaming and was now awake. But I could not lie longer in bed. I must go out. The morning air would give me life; I felt worn and weak.
"What's the matter now?" said she. "Grandmamma's going to have all the Sunflowers killed," I sobbed. "Oh, I wish I'd never gone to look at them with the Rushlight!" "That's how it is," said Jael sagely, "folks always wishes they'd done different when it's too late. But don't sob your heart out that fashion, Miss Grace. Come into the pantry and I'll give you a bit of cake."
But, you see, being jogged doesn't impress the mind like having to jog; and though I can bring that time back as plain as if it was yesterday, with the very nursery I slept in at Barlingford, and the rushlight in a tall iron cage on the floor, and the shadow of the cage on the bare whitewashed walls it's clean gone out of his mind, I dare say." "I'm afraid it has, Nancy."
That at the foot of the staircase was also shut. Claude stood a moment, frowning; then he crossed the floor towards the staircase door. But though his mind was fixed, the spell of the other's excitement told on him: the flicker of the rushlight made him start; and half-way across the room a sound at his elbow brought him up as if he had been stabbed.
"Would she have me become an ordinary clergyman of the Church of England?" he cried indignantly, as he switched on the light in his bedroom shortly before midnight for the rushlight in the cell of the modern man of God is supplied at a strength of so many volts.
"Ye daft auld wife!" she said, answering a thought that was not; and she blushed with the innocent consciousness of a child. Hastily she did up the massive and shining coils, hastily donned a wrapper, and with the rushlight in her hand, stole into the hall. Below stairs she heard the clock ticking the deliberate seconds, and Frank jingling with the decanters in the dining-room.
They were the reflexions of the rushlight in the sewer below. The stench was frightful the air heavy with pestilence. The first breath I drew made my heart sink, and my stomach turn. But I forgot everything in the object which lay before me, as Downes tore a half-finished coat off three corpses laid side by side on the bare floor.
When I hear people dwelling on how much they have given up for God, I begin to wonder whether those self-denying ones have realized the joy and satisfaction which God wants to give to the fully consecrated heart. If they have, it is strange for them to talk of rushlight sacrifices whilst they are bathed in the sunlight of the Divine Presence.
The words were still in the air, the laughter echoed in his brain, the shadows cast by the shaking rushlight danced and took weird shapes. A rustling as of black wings gathered about him, unseen shapes hovered closer and closer was it his fancy or did he hear them? He tried to disbelieve, he strove to withstand his terror; and a moment his fortitude held.
There was the yearning to know More, to seek it, to follow it over earth's ends, though the quest led to the abyss of a watery grave. What did they want, these fool fellows, following the rushlight of their own desires? That is just it.
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