Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea."

As the lines floated across his memory, the Master had a mind to
employ them in his peroration (giving them a Christian trend, of
course) in place of the sonnet he had meant to quote. This would
involve reconstructing a longish paragraph; but they had touched his
mood, and he spent some time pacing to and fro under the trees before
his taste rejected them as facile and even cheap in comparison with
Wordsworth's--

"Men unto whom sufficient for the day,
And minds not stinted or untill'd are given,
--Sound healthy children of the God of heaven--
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May."

"Yes, yes," murmured the Master, "Wordsworth's is the better.
But what a gift, to be able to express a thought just _so_--with that
freshness, that noble simplicity! And even with Wordsworth it was
fugitive, lost after four or five marvellous years. No one not being
a Greek has ever possessed it in permanence. . . ."

Here he paused at the sound of a footfall on the turf close behind
him, and turned about with a slight frown; which readily yielded,
however, and became a smile of courtesy.

"Ah, my dear Colt! Good evening!"

"Good evening, Master."

Mr. Colt came up deferentially, yet firmly, much as a nurse in a good
family might collect a straying infant. He was a tall, noticeably
well-grown man, a trifle above thirty, clean shaven, with a square
and obstinate chin. He wore no hat, and his close black hair showed
a straight middle parting above his low and somewhat protuberant
forehead. The parting widened at the occiput to a well-kept tonsure.
At the back the head wanted balance; and this lent a suggestion of
brutality--of "thrust"--to his abounding appearance of strength.
He walked in his priestly black with the gait and carriage proper to
a heavy dragoon.

"A fine evening, indeed. Are you disengaged?"

"Certainly, certainly"--in comparison with Mr. Colt's grave voice the
Master's was almost a chirrup--"whether for business or for the
pleasure of a talk. Nothing wrong, I hope?"

For a moment or two the Chaplain did not answer. He seemed to be
weighing his words. At length he said--

"I should have reported at once, but have been thinking it over.
At Early Celebration this morning Warboise insulted the wafer."

"Dear, dear