Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/368

 piety, but purely as a familiar place of peace and comfort which he might never see again. The circumstances were probably unique, and they gave him that new eye for an old haunt which had been opened on the pitch the day before. But then he had been as a dying man, and now he was as the dead come sneaking back to life for an hour or less; the defiant enjoyment of forbidden fruit was among the springs of his infinite exaltation.

The great east window made the first impress on his sensitised film of vision; he had not been at the school four years, on a cricketer's easy footing with so many of the masters, without hearing that window frankly depreciated; but it was light and bright, and good enough for Jan. Then there were the huge brass candelabra in the chancel, pyramids of light on winter evenings, trees of gold this golden afternoon; for the summer sun came slanting in over everybody's right shoulder, as all sat in rows facing the altar, and not in the long opposing lines of other school chapels. Tablets to Old Boys who had lived great lives or died gallant deaths brought a sigh of envy for the first time. They were the only sight that reminded Jan sorely of himself, until he looked up and saw dear old Jerry standing in his marble pulpit for the last time. The hymn ceased. The organ purred like a cat until the last stop had been driven in. Jan supposed it must have done it always. A sparrow chirped outside, and Mr. Thrale pronounced the invocation in that voice which knew no lip-service, but prayed and preached as it taught and thundered, from the heart.

"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

That was his text; and many there were present, boys and Old Boys, masters and masters' wives, who reverenced the preacher before all living men, yet knew what was