PRESSED for time, Dr. Parker fled. But he took the letter with him in
order that he might post it in Brombridge, and so insure its earlier
delivery in London. As soon as Dr. Parker had gone the vicar made
a survey of the elements, and then set off at his best pace on a
ten-minute walk to his house.
In doing this he knew that he ran the risk of a soaking. Storm clouds
which had hovered all the afternoon were now massed overhead. Hardly
had he entered the village street, when he perceived large drops of
rain. But in his present frame of mind he did not feel like staying a
moment longer under Joliffe’s roof than he could help. He was still
seething within. He was still marveling at the crassness of certain of
his fellow creatures. The open defection of one whom he had counted a
sure ally was very hard to forgive.
However, by the time he had reached the edge of the common he realized
that he was in a fair way of being drenched to the skin; moreover the
rainstorms of the district, though often of great severity, did not
last long as a rule.
Near by was a thicket of well-grown trees, which at once lured the
vicar to accept their protection. As he crept under the branches
there came a play of lightning, followed by thunder in a series of
deafening crashes. Devoutly thankful that he had had the wit to gain
shelter he crouched low, turned up his coat collar and looked out at
the rain descending in a sheet. A hundred yards or so away, an old,
white-aproned village woman, very thinly clad, was struggling toward
her cottage. As she came near the priest’s stone in the middle of the
village green, a man without a hat, and no better protected from the
storm than herself, suddenly sprang up before her. In an instant he had
taken off his coat and placed it round her shoulders.
The old woman went slowly on toward her cottage, while the man stood
coatless in the rain. It did not seem to cause him any concern, he
seemed, in fact, almost to welcome the storm, as he stood erect in its
midst, the elements beating upon him, the thunder rolling over his
head. And the vicar, peering from his shelter, thought that once or
twice his right hand was raised as if he were in the act of speaking to
heaven.
The man was John Smith. The vicar was amazed; such sheer insensibility
to what was going on around was uncanny. Bareheaded, coatless, drenched
to the skin, the man scorned the shelter so close at hand. The first
thought that passed through the vicar’s mind was one of pity for the
man’s physical and mental state. But hard upon that emotion came regret
that the stubborn Joliffe was not also a spectator of the scene. Any
doubts he still held as to the man’s sanity must surely have been
dispelled.
A great wind began to roam the upper air. The lightning grew more
vivid, the thunder louder, the weight of rain still heavier. The vicar
crouched against the bole of the best tree. And as he did so, his
thoughts somehow passed from the poor, demented figure of fantasy still
before his eyes, to those overwhelming forces of nature in which they
were both at that minute engulfed.
Intellectually the vicar was a very modest man. Sometimes, it is true,
he had been tempted to ask himself poignant questions. But he had never
presumed to give an independent answer of his own. For him the solution
of the central mystery of man’s relation to the forces around him was
comprised in the word “Faith.”
But now that he was the witness of poor John Smith’s dementia, the
sense of human futility recurred to him. It needed a power of Faith
to relate that drenched scarecrow, a mere insect upon whom Nature was
wreaking a boundless will, to the cosmic march and profluence. For a
moment the vicar was almost tempted to deny the still, small voice
within and submit entirely to the judgment of the senses. His eyes,
his ears, his sense of touch assured him that the poor madman out in
the rain was lost in the sum of things. What relation could he have
to those majestic powers by whom he was buffeted? Surely that lone,
hapless figure was the symbol of Man himself.
And yet the act of devotion the man had just performed must have a
meaning. It was a mystery within a mystery. Of whom had this poor
blasphemer learned that trick; by what divine license did he practice
it? For nearly half an hour it continued to rain pitilessly, and during
that time the vicar searched and questioned his heart in regard to the
man before him. At last the storm subsided; he came out of his shelter
and went thoughtfully home. But in bed that night, when he closed his
eyes and tried to sleep, he found the image of John Smith printed
inside his eyelids.