solemn restfulness which comes whenever we realize that for any reason we are cut off from the possibility of communication with our kind.  For a few moments he felt as a man feels all alone at the summit of a mountain, in the depths of an untrodden forest, on the limitless surface of a calm ocean.  Yet, as he knew, there were men quite near to him.  Across the road, not fifty yards away, the brick walls of the Baptist Chapel were hiding many men and women.  Perhaps it was the complete isolation of this ugly building, the house of prayer pushed away into the desert far from all houses of laughter and talk, that had induced the idea of isolation in himself.

If he listened, he could hear sounds made by men.  Through the chapel windows there came a continuous murmur, like the buzzing of a monster bee under the dome of a glass hive—­the voice of the pastor preaching his sermon.  Then all at once came loud music, shuffling of seats, scraping of chairs; and a voluminous song poured out and upward in the silent air.  Dale idly thought of this chorus as resembling the smoke from the pipe—­something that went up a little way and faded long before it reached the sky.

The music ceased.  The congregation were leaving the chapel.  Dale got off the gate, put his pipe in his pocket, and watched the humble worshipers as they came toward him.  He knew them nearly all, and gravely returned their grave salutations as they passed by.  They were maid-servants and men-servants from Rodchurch, old people and quite young people, a few laborers and cottage-women; and they all walked slowly, not at first talking to one another, but smiling with introspective vagueness.  Dale observed their decent costume, their sober deportment, and leisurely gait, observed also a striking similarity in the expression of all the faces.  They were like people who unwillingly awake and struggle to recall every detail of the dream they are being forced to relinquish.  Observing them thus, one could not fail to understand that, at this moment at least, they all firmly believed that their just-finished song had been heard a very, very long way up.

The road was empty again when the pastor came out and locked the chapel door behind him.  He spoke to Dale with a gentle cheerfulness.

“Good day, friend Dale.”

Dale, not too well pleased with this easy and familiar mode of address, replied stiffly.

“I wish you good day, Mr. Osborn.”

“Good day.  God’s day.  That’s what it meant in the beginning, Mr. Dale.”

And Dale, resuming his seat on the gate, watched Mr. Osborn go plodding away toward Vine-Pits and the Cross Roads.  This pastor, who had succeeded old Melling a few years ago, was a short, bearded man of sixty, and he lived in lodgings on the outskirts of Rodchurch.  Evidently he was not going home to dinner.  Perhaps he had some sick person to visit, and he might get a snack at the Barradine Arms or one of the cottages.