The young man stopped a moment and smiled all over his face, and the priest noticed the extraordinary serenity and pleasantness of the face—­and that, though it was the face of a Poor Man, with sunken cheeks and lines at the corners of the mouth.

“Thank you, Father,” he said.  “The same to you.”

Then he went on, his boots as noisy as ever, and turned up the south aisle.  And presently the sound of his boots ceased.

* * * * *

The priest still stood a moment or two, looking and thinking, and it struck him with something of pleasure that the young man, though obviously of the most completely submerged tenth, had not even hesitated or paused, still less said one word, with the hope of a little something for Christmas’ sake.  Surely he had spoken, too, with the voice of an educated man.

He became suddenly interested—­he scarcely knew why, and the impression made just by that single glimpse of a personality deepened every moment....  What in the world was that young man doing here?...  What was his business up in that empty south aisle?  Who was he?  What was it all about?

He thought presently that he would go up and see; it was on his way back to the clergy-house, too.  But when he reached the corner of the aisle and could see up it, there seemed to be no one there.

He began to walk up, wondering more than ever, and then on a sudden he saw a figure kneeling on the lower step of the chapel on the right, railed off and curtained now, where the Crib was ready to be disclosed two hours later.

It all seemed very odd.  He could not understand why anyone should wish to pray before an impenetrable curtain.  As he came nearer he saw it was his friend all right.  Those boots were unmistakable.  The young man was kneeling on the step, quite upright and motionless, his cap held in his hands, facing towards the curtain behind which, no doubt, there stood the rock-roofed stable, with the Three Personages—­an old man, a maid and a new-born Child.  But their time, too, was not yet.  It was two hours away.

Priests do not usually stare in the face of people who are saying their prayers—­they are quite accustomed to that phenomenon; but this priest (he tells me) simply could not resist it.  And as he passed on his noiseless shoes, noticing that the light from his own confessional shone full upon the man, he turned and looked straight at his face.

Now I do not understand what it was that he saw; he does not understand it himself; but it seems that there was something that impressed him more than anything else that he had ever seen before or since in the whole world.

The young man’s eyes were open and his lips were closed.  Not one muscle of his face moved.  So much for the physical facts.  But it was a case where the physical facts are supremely unimportant....  At any rate, the priest could only recall them with an effort.  The point was that there was something supra-physical there—­(personally I should call it supernatural)—­that stabbed the watcher’s heart clean through with one over whelming pang.... (I think that’s enough.)