THE ALTAR STEPS BY COMPTON MACKENZIE _Author of "Carnival," "Youth's Encounter," "Poor Relations," etc._ NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 1922 _The only portrait in this book is of one who is now dead_ THIS BOOK, THE PRELUDE TO _The Parson's Progress_ I INSCRIBE WITH DEEPEST AFFECTION TO MY MOTHER _S. Valentine's Day, 1922._ CONTENTS I The Bishop's Shadow II The Lima Street Mission III Religious Education IV Husband and Wife V Palm Sunday VI Nancepean VII Life at Nancepean VIII The Wreck IX Slowbridge X Whit-Sunday XI Meade Cantorum XII The Pomeroy Affair XIII Wych-on-the-Wold XIV St. Mark's Day XV The Scholarship XVI Chatsea XVII The Drunken Priest XVIII Silchester College Mission XIX The Altar for the Dead XX Father Rowley XXI Points of View XXII Sister Esther Magdalene XXIII Malford Abbey XXIV The Order of St. George XXV Suscipe Me, Domine XXVI Addition XXVII Multiplication XXVIII Division XXIX Subtraction XXX The New Bishop of Silchester XXXI Silchester Theological College XXXII Ember Days THE ALTAR STEPS CHAPTER I THE BISHOP'S SHADOW Frightened by some alarm of sleep that was forgotten in the moment of waking, a little boy threw back the bedclothes and with quick heart and breath sat listening to the torrents of darkness that went rolling by. He dared not open his mouth to scream lest he should be suffocated; he dared not put out his arm to search for the bell-rope lest he should be seized; he dared not hide beneath the blankets lest he should be kept there; he could do nothing except sit up trembling in a vain effort to orientate himself. Had the room really turned upside down? On an impulse of terror he jumped back from the engorging night and bumped his forehead on one of the brass knobs of the bedstead. With horror he apprehended that what he had so often feared had finally come to pass. An earthquake had swallowed up London in spite of everybody's assurance that London could not be swallowed up by earthquakes. He was going down down to smoke and fire . . . or was it the end of the world? The quick and the dead . . . skeletons . . . thousands and thousands of skeletons. . . . "Guardian Angel!" he shrieked. Now surely that Guardian Angel so often conjured must appear. A shaft of golden candlelight flickered through the half open door. The little boy prepared an attitude to greet his Angel that was a compound of the suspicion and courtesy with which he would have welcomed a new governess and the admiring fellowship with which he would have thrown a piece of bread to a swan. "Are you awake, Mark?" he heard his mother whisper outside. He answered with a cry of exultation and relief. "Oh, Mother," he sighed, clinging to the soft sleeves of her dressing-gown. "I thought it was being the end of the world." "What made you think that, my precious?"