The bells chimed from early morning until sombre eve; ancient clocks sounded the hour with strikes rusty from long service of time; rooks and white fantail-pigeons spoke with the slow voice of creatures that are lazily content with the slumbrous present and undismayed by the sleepy morrow.  In Summer the black-robed dignitaries and white choristers, themselves not more than larger rooks and fantails, passed slowly across the green Close to their dutiful worship.  In Winter they battled with the wind like the birds in the sky.  In Autumn there was a sound of leaves along the alleys and in the Gothic entries.  In Spring there were daisies in the Close, and daffodils nodding among the tombs, and on the grey wall of the Archdeacon’s garden a flaming peacock’s tail of Japanese quince.

Sometimes Mark was overwhelmed by the tyranny of the past in Silchester; sometimes it seemed that nothing was worth while except at the end of living to have one’s effigy in stone upon the walls of the Cathedral, and to rest there for ever with viewless eyes and cold prayerful hands, oneself in harmony at last with all that had gone before.

“Yet this peace is the peace of God,” he told himself.  “And I who am privileged for a little time to share in it must carry away with me enough to make a treasure of peace in my own heart, so that I can give from that treasure to those who have never known peace.”

The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always.

When Mark heard these words sound from the altar far away in the golden glooms of the Cathedral, it seemed to him that the building bowed like a mighty couchant beast and fell asleep in the security of God’s presence.

After Mark had been a year at the Theological College he received a letter from the Bishop: 

     High Thorpe Castle.

     Sept. 21, ’04.

     Dear Lidderdale,

I have heard from Canon Havelock that he considers you are ready to be ordained at Advent, having satisfactorily passed the Cambridge Preliminary Theological Examination.  If therefore you succeed in passing my examination early in November, I am willing to ordain you on December 18.  It will be necessary of course for you to obtain a title, and I have just heard from Mr. Shuter, the Vicar of St. Luke’s, Galton, that he is anxious to make arrangements for a curate.  You had better make an appointment, and if I hear favourably from him I will licence you for his church.  It has always been the rule in this diocese that non-graduate candidates for Holy Orders should spend at least two years over their theological studies, but I am not disposed to enforce this rule in your case.

     Yours very truly,