imes, till in the glimmer of the early
light I rose and drew back my curtains. The dawn was struggling up fitfully
in the east, among cloudy bars, tipping and edging them with smouldering
flashes of light, and there was a lustrous radiance in the air. Then, to my
surprise, looking down at the silent garden, pale with dew, I saw the great
figure of Father Payne, bare-headed, wrapt in a cloak, pacing solidly and,
I thought, happily among the shrubberies, stopping every now and then to
watch the fiery light and to breathe the invigorating air--and I felt then
that, whatever he might be doing, he at all events _was_ something, in
a sense which applied to but few people I knew. He was not hard,
unimaginative, fenced in by stupidity and self-righteousness from
unhappiness and doubt, as were some of the men accounted successful whom I
knew. No, it was something positive, some self-created light, some stirring
of hidden force, that emanated from him, such as I had never encountered
before.

VII

THE MEN

I can attempt no sort of chronicle of our days, which indeed were quiet and
simple enough. I have only preserved in my diary the record of a few scenes
and talks and incidents. I will, however, first indicate how our party, as
I knew it, was constituted, so that the record may be intelligible.

First of us came Leonard Barthrop, who was, partly by his seniority and
partly by his temperament, a sort of second-in-command in the house, much
consulted and trusted by Father Payne. He was a man of about thirty-five,
grave, humorous, pleasant. If one was in a minor difficulty, too trivial to
take to Father Payne, it was natural to consult Barthrop; and he sometimes,
too, would say a word of warning to a man, if a storm seemed to be brewing.
It must not be denied that men occasionally got on Father Payne's nerves,
quite unconsciously, through tactlessness or stupid mannerisms--and
Barthrop was able to smooth the situation out by a word in season. He had a
power of doing this without giving offence, from the obvious goodwill which
permeated all he did. Barthrop was not very sociable or talkative, and he
was occupied, I think, in some sort of historical research--I believe he
has since made his name as a judicious and interesting historian; but I
knew little of what he was doing, and indeed was hardly intimate with him,
though always at ease in his company. He was not a man with strong
preferences or prejudices, nor was he in an