I sate, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our mother.  But the tears and funeral bells were hushed suddenly by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king’s artillery advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by its echoes among the mountains.  “Hush!” I said, as I bent my ear earthwards to listen—­“hush!—­this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else”—­and then I listened more profoundly, and said as I raised my head—­“or else, oh heavens! it is victory that swallows up all strife.”

4.

Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and sea to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, amongst companions crowned with laurel.  The darkness of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, hid from us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about our carriage as a centre—­we heard them, but we saw them not.  Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against centuries; too full of pathos they were, too full of joy that acknowledged no fountain but God, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restles anthems, by reverberations rising from every choir, of the Gloria in excelsis.  These tidings we that sate upon the laurelled car had it for our privilege to publish amongst all nations.  And already, by signs audible through the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, that knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay.  Wherefore was it that we delayed?  We waited for a secret word, that should bear witness to the hope of nations, as now accomplished for ever.  At midnight the secret word arrived; which word was—­Waterloo and Recovered Christendom!  The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us it went; high above our leaders’ heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we traversed.  Every city, at the presence of the secret word, threw open its gates to receive us.  The rivers were silent as we crossed.  All the infinite forests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret word.  And the darkness comprehended it.

Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster.  Its gates, which rose to the clouds, were closed.  But when the dreadful word, that rode before us, reached them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon their hinges; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle of the cathedral.  Headlong was our pace; and at every altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sickening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flying past.  Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet no strength of morning light had reached us, when we saw before us the aerial galleries of the organ and the choir.  Every pinnacle of the fretwork, every station of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested by white-robed choristers, that sang deliverance; that wept no more tears, as once their fathers had wept; but at intervals that sang together to the generations, saying—­