The coming — Inside the Classic

en a time in the vicar’s life when his task had sat lightly upon him. Given the family living of Penfold-with-Churley in October, 1879, the Reverend the Honorable Thomas Perry-Hennington had never really had any trouble in the matter until August, 1914. And then, all at once, trouble came so heavily upon a man no longer young, that from about the time of the retreat from Mons Saturday morning became a symbol of torment. It was then that a dark specter first appeared in the vicar’s mind. For thirty-five years he had been modestly content with a simple moral obligation in return for a stipend of eight hundred pounds a year. He had never presumed to question the fitness of a man with an Oxford pass degree for such a relatively humble office. A Christian of the old sort, with the habit of faith, and in his own phrase “without intellectual smear,” he had always been on terms with God. And though Mr. Perry-Hennington would have been the last to claim Him as a tribal deity, in the vicar’s ear He undoubtedly spoke with the accent of an English public school, and used the language of Dr. Pusey and Dr. Westcott. But somehow August, 1914, had seemed to change everything.

It was now June of the following year and Saturday morning had grown into a nightmare for the vicar. Doubt had arisen in the household of faith, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, but only a firm will and a stout heart had been able to dispel it. Terrible wrong had been done to an easy and pleasant world and God had seemed to look on. Moreover it had been boldly claimed that not only was he a graduate of a foreign university, but that he had justified the ways of Antichrist.

After grave and bitter searchings of heart, Mr. Perry-Hennington had risen, not only in the pulpit but in the public press, to rebut the charge. But this morning, seated in a charming room, biting the end of a pen, a humbler, more personal doubt in his mind. Was it a man’s work to be devoting one’s energies to the duties of a parish priest? Was it a man’s work to be addressing a few yokels, for the most part women and old men? As far as Penfold-with-Churley was concerned Armageddon might have been ages away. In fact Mr. Perry-Hennington had recently written a letter to his favorite newspaper in very good English to say so.

For the tenth time that morning the vicar dipped his pen in the ink. For the tenth time it hung lifeless, a thing without words, above a page thirsting to receive them. For the tenth time the ink grew dry. With a faint sigh, which in one less strong of will would have been despair, he suddenly lifted his eyes to look through the window.

The room faced south. Sussex was spread before him like a carpet. Fold upon fold, hill beyond hill, it flowed in curves of inconceivable harmony to meet the distant sea. To the right a subtle thickening of sunlight marked the ancient forest of Ashdown; straight ahead was Crowborough Beacon; far away to the left were dark masses of gorse, masking the delicate verdure of the weald of Kent. There was not a cloud in the sky. The sun of June, a generous, living warmth, was everywhere. But as the vicar gazed solemnly out of the window he had not a thought for the enchantment of the scene.

Suddenly he rose a little impatiently and opened the window still wider. If he was to do his duty on the morrow he must have more light, more air. A grizzled head was flung forth to meet the strong, keen sun, to snuff the magic air. A clean wind racing by made his lips and eyelids tingle, and then, all at once, he remembered his boy on the _Poseidon_.

But he must put the _Poseidon_ out of his mind if he was to do his pastoral duty on the morrow. Before he could draw in his head and buckle to his task, an odd whirr of sound, curiously sharp and loud, came on his ear. There was an airplane somewhere. Involuntarily he shaded his eyes to look. Yes, there she was! What speed, what grace, what incomparable power in the live, sentient thing! How feat she looked, how noble, as she rode the blue like some fabled roc of an eastern story.

“Off to France,” said the vicar. He took off his spectacles and wiped them, and then put them on again.