The altar bell rang
snappishly through this cold fog like the dinner bell of a boarding
house, and in that yellow mist, which deepened with every minute, the
white flames of the candles lost nearly all their starlike brightness.
There seemed to be depression and resentment in the deep voices of the
choir rumbling and rolling behind the screen; there seemed to be haste,
a desire to get it over, in the nasal voice of the priest praying almost
squeakily at the altar.
People were continually entering the cathedral, many of them having the
appearance of foreigners, many of them young men who looked like
waiters: one was struck by their reverence, and also by their look of
intellectual apathy.
Father Knox appeared in the pulpit, which is stationed far down the
nave, having come from his work of teaching at Ware to preach to the
faithful at Westminster. He looked very young, and rather apprehensive,
a slight boyish figure, swaying uneasily, the large luminous eyes, of an
extraordinary intensity, almost glazed with light, the full lips, so
obviously meant for laughter, parted with a nervous uncertainty, a wave
of thick brown hair falling across the narrow forehead with a look of
tiredness, the long slender hands never still for a moment.
I will endeavour to summarise his remarkable sermon, which was delivered
through the fog in a soft and throaty voice, the body of the preacher
swaying monotonously backward and forward, the congregation sitting back
in its little chairs and coughing inconveniently from beginning to end.
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