THE MORNING WATCH
217
flesh, on this very morning, at this very moment, He was waiting; and
He was now within His last hours.
He won't see the sun go down today.
He looked at all the lights, spearing, aspmng, among the dying
flowers. Knobbled and fluted with their own spillings, the candles stood
like sheaves; some, bent by the heat, bowed over like winter saplings.
Almost all the flowers hung their exhausted faces. They were so
shrunken and disheveled now that he could see clearly among them the
many shapes and sizes of the vessels which held them, the professional
vases and ewers and jars, and the tumblers and tin cans from the
poor cabins out the Mountain. He could just hear the clock. Tonight,
he whispered, watching that devastation. That night. This minute.
He leaned, and looked at the clock. It was one minute after five. Some–
thing troubled him which he had done or had left undone, some failure
of the soul or default of the heart which he could not quite remember or
was it perhaps foresee; he was empty and idle, in some way he had failed.
Yet he was also filled to overflowing with a reverent and marveling
peace and thankfulness. My cup runneth over, something whispered
within him, yet what he saw in his mind's eye was a dry chalice, an
empty Grail. No more I could do, he reflected,
if
I stayed all night. No
more. No use: and he continued merely to look without thought at the
emblazoned ruin. "Good-by," something whispered from incalculably
deep within him. 0
good-by, good-by,
his heart replied. A strange and
happy sorrow filled him.
It
is
finished,
his soul whispered. He looked
at the humbled backs ahead of him and prayed: The peace of God
which passeth all understanding keep our hearts and minds in the
knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ. And the bless–
ing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, be
amongst us and remain with us always.
He opened his eyes; and it was all as it was before. Of course it
was. He was light and uneasy and at peace within. There was nothing
to do or think or say.
He signed himself carefully with the Cross, got up, genuflected,
and left the Chapel; just inside the north door, he took off his shoes.
Hobe and Jimmy came up behind him and they took off their shoes
too.
III
They walked down the sandstone steps into an air so dif–
ferent from the striving candles and the expiring flowers that they
were stopped flatfooted on the gravel. Morning had not yet begun but
