A loud thump on the pulpit woke him out of his thoughts. His father had noticed his abstraction for some time, and chose this way of rousing him. From his vantage he could see into all the separate cells of his congregation, and if he noticed anyone nodding or mooning or reading his Bible for solace, he made haste to recall him to a proper sense of his surroundings. He now stopped in the middle of an eschatological trump and glared at Jerry with his bright, tragic eyes. He had a habit of drastic personal dealings with his flock, to which, perhaps, its small size was due. Certainly Ades of Cowlease had never entered the Bethel door since Mr. Sumption had “thumped” at him, and one or two others had been driven away in a like manner. To-day everyone, even those whose heads did not pop out of their pews like Jim-Crows, guessed that the minister had “thumped” at Jerry, for the minister’s Jerry seldom came through a service without being thumped at—luckily he did not much mind it. “W’oa—old ’un,” he mumbled to himself, as he met his father’s stare, and soon luckily came the hymn: “They shall gather by the river,” which Jerry sang most tunefully, in a loud, sweet, not quite human voice, forgetting all those sad thoughts of the chapel weed.... But he remembered them when he was walking across to the Horselunges with his father. “Father, if I can’t get Ivy Beatup, I’ll kill myself.” “For shame, you ungodly boy—to speak so light of losing your salvation!” “Would I lose my salvation if I killed myself?” “Reckon you would. Satan would get you at once.” “I’ll kill her, then. Satan can have her and welcome.” “It’s you he’d have if you killed her.” “Then he’s got me both ways?” “Reckon he has, you sinful good-for-nothing, dreaming in sermon-time. Have done, do, with your idle talk, or Satan will get me too, and make me give you a kick behind.” 9 Jerry’s leave was not a happy or a peaceful one—no more for his father and Ivy Beatup than for himself. Every day he was over at Worge—Ivy had never met anyone so undetachable. She hated herself, too, for some temporary capitulations. Jerry had a way of making her faint-hearted, so that she would be betrayed into a kiss, or even a visit to the Pictures, with an entwined walk home under the stars. She wished that some other boy—some young Pix or Viner or Kadwell—was home on leave, then she might have escaped to him from Jerry. Not that she really doubted herself—she had made up her mind that she did not want him and that she would not have him; this still held good, and her momentary lapses deceived neither her nor him. He no longer wooed her ardently—contrariwise, he was stiff and sulky, sullen and rough when he kissed her. He knew that there was no chance for him, that his only prey could be the present moment, which he snatched and despised.