Chapter 4

On Thursday evening he sat in his room at the Horselunges, preparing his sermon. Of course his sermons were not written, but he took great pains with their preparation under heads and points. He felt that this occasion demanded a special effort, and it was unfortunate that he felt all muddled and crooked, his thoughts continually springing away from their discipline of heads and racing off on queer adventures, scarcely agreeable to Calvinistic theology.

He thought of those dead boys, some of whom he knew well and others whom he knew but slightly, and he pictured them made perfect by suffering, buying themselves the Kingdom of Heaven by their blood. He knew that his creed gave him no right to do so—Christ died for the elect, and no man can squeeze his way into salvation by wounds and blood. And yet these boys were crucified with Christ.... He saw all the crosses of Flanders, a million graves.... Perhaps there was a back way to [276] the Kingdom, a path of pain and sacrifice by which sinners won the gate....

He rebuked himself, and bent again to his work. The setting sun poured in from the west, making the little room, with its faded, peeling walls, and mangy furniture, a tub of swimming light. Mr. Sumption had got down to his Fourthly when his thoughts went off again, and this time after a boy who was not dead. It was a couple of months since he had heard from Jerry, and the letter had been unsatisfactory, though by this time he should have learned not to expect so much from Jerry’s letters. He lifted his head from the paper with a sigh, and, chin propped on hand, gazed out of the window to where bars of heavy crimson cloud reefed the blue bay of light. He remembered an evening nearly a year ago, when he and Jerry had sat by the window of a poor lodging-house room in Kemp Town, and felt nearer to each other than before in their lives....

“Reckon he can’t help it—reckon he’s just a vessel of wrath.”

He bit his tongue as a cure for weakness, and for another ten minutes bobbed and fumed over his notes. The sermon was not going well. He had taken for his text: “Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains.” He told the congregation that their grief for the death of these young men was but part of the universal woe, a spark of that furnace which should devour the world. Melting together in Doomsday fires the Book of Revelation and the Minor Prophets, he pointed out how the Scriptures had been fulfilled ... the Beast, the False Prophet, the Army from the North, the Star called Wormwood, the Woman on Seven Hills, the Vision [277] of Four Horns, the Crowns of Joshua, the Flying Roll, all these were in the world to-day, Signs in the rolling clouds of smoke that poured from the burning fiery furnace, where only the Children of God could walk unharmed. “And the Sign of the Son of Man shall be in the heavens....”

Here it was that again his thoughts became treacherous to his theme. Instead of the Sign of the Son of Man appearing in the heavens, he seemed to see it rising out of the earth, the crosses on the million graves of Flanders. Could it be that Christ was already come? ... come in the brave and patient sufferings of boys, who died that the world might live?... “It is expedient that one man should die for the people.” He drove away the thought as a blasphemy, and stooped once more to his paper, while his finger rubbed under the lines of his big Bible beside him.

“Sixthly: The Crowns of Joshua. Satan at his right hand. ‘The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan.’ The promise of the Branch. The promise of the Temple. But all must first be utterly destroyed. ‘I will utterly consume all things, saith the Lord.’ Don’t think the War will end before everything is destroyed. ‘That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness.’ The hope of the Elect. ’I will bring the third part through fire.’ ...”

There was the rattle and jar of crockery outside the door, and the next minute Mrs. Hubble kicked it open, and brought in the minister’s supper of bread and cocoa. She set it down, ruthlessly sweeping aside his books and paper, and then took a telegram out of her apron pocket.

“This has just come, and the girl’s waiting for an answer.”

Telegrams came only on one errand in the country of [278] the Four Roads, and Mrs. Hubble felt sure that this was to announce either the wounds or death of Jerry. It is true that he might be coming home on leave, but in that case she reckoned he would never trouble to send a telegram—he would just turn up, and give her his room to sweep and his bed to make all on the minute.

She narrowly watched the minister as he read it—if it brought bad news she would like to be able to give the village a detailed account of his reception of it. But he made no sign—only struck her for the first time as looking rather stupid. It was queer that she had never noticed before what a heavy, blunted kind of face he had.

“Any answer?”

He shook his head, and put the telegram face downwards on the tray. Mrs. Hubble flounced out and banged the door.

For some minutes after she had gone Mr. Sumption sat motionless, his arm dangling at his sides, his eyes fixed rather vacantly on the steam rising from the cocoa-jug. The sun had dipped behind the meadow-hills of Bird-in-Eye, and only a few red, fiery rays glowed on the ceiling. Mr. Sumption picked up the telegram and read it again.

“Deeply regret to inform you that Private J. M. Sumption has died at the front.”

He felt weak, boneless, as if his joints had been smitten asunder. Something hot and heavy seemed to press down his skull. He could not think, and yet the inhibition was not a respite, but a torment. His ears sang. Every now and then he tried pitifully to collect himself, but failed. Jerry dead ... Jerry dead ... then suddenly his head fell forward on his hands, and he began to cry, first weakly, then stormily, noisily, his whole body shaking.

The sobs stopped as suddenly as they had begun, but [279] the brain-pressure had been relieved, and he could now think a little. He saw, as from a great way off, himself before the telegram came—he saw that as he planned that memorial service, prepared that elegiac sermon, there had run in his veins a fiery, subtle pride that he, at least, was father of a living man. He had not seen it at the time, but he saw it now—now that his pride had been trampled and he himself was in the same abyss with the souls he was to comfort. He too was father of the dead; Jerry was dead—at last and for ever beyond the reach of his help, his efforts, even his prayers ... the son of the woman from Ihornden.

The room was almost in darkness now; fiery lights moved and shifted, and by their glow he read the telegram over again, for at the bottom of his heart was always a sick, insane thought that he must be mistaken, that this blow could not have fallen, that Jerry must still be somewhere alive and up to no good. But the message was there, and now on this third reading, he noticed something peculiar about the phrasing of it—“Private Sumption has died at the front.” Surely this was not the usual form of announcement. He had seen several such messages of woe, and they had read “killed in action” or “died of wounds.” He had never seen one put exactly like this.

However, it was not of any real importance. Jerry was dead; that was the only vital, necessary fact. But he would write to Mus’ Archie for particulars.... The lamp was on the table, and he lit it, pushing aside the unused supper-tray and the littered sermon-paper.