If he had been a woman he must have screamed under the nervous
tension which he was now undergoing. But that relief being denied to
his virility, he clenched his teeth in misery, bringing lines about
his mouth like those in the Laocoon, and corrugations between his
brows.
A mournful wind blew through the trees, and sounded in the chimney
like the pedal notes of an organ. Each ivy leaf overgrowing the wall
of the churchless church-yard hard by, now abandoned, pecked its
neighbour smartly, and the vane on the new Victorian-Gothic church in
the new spot had already begun to creak. Yet apparently it was not
always the outdoor wind that made the deep murmurs; it was a voice.
He guessed its origin in a moment or two; the curate was praying with
his aunt in the adjoining room. He remembered her speaking of him.
Presently the sounds ceased, and a step seemed to cross the landing.
Jude sat up, and shouted "Hoi!"
The step made for his door, which was open, and a man looked in.
It was a young clergyman.
"I think you are Mr. Highridge," said Jude. "My aunt has mentioned
you more than once. Well, here I am, just come home; a fellow gone
to the bad; though I had the best intentions in the world at one
time. Now I am melancholy mad, what with drinking and one thing and
another."
Slowly Jude unfolded to the curate his late plans and movements, by
an unconscious bias dwelling less upon the intellectual and ambitious
side of his dream, and more upon the theological, though this had, up
till now, been merely a portion of the general plan of advancement.
"Now I know I have been a fool, and that folly is with me," added
Jude in conclusion. "And I don't regret the collapse of my
university hopes one jot. I wouldn't begin again if I were sure to
succeed. I don't care for social success any more at all. But I do
feel I should like to do some good thing; and I bitterly regret the
Church, and the loss of my chance of being her ordained minister."
The curate, who was a new man to this neighbourhood, had grown deeply
interested, and at last he said: "If you feel a real call to the
ministry, and I won't say from your conversation that you do not,
for it is that of a thoughtful and educated man, you might enter the
Church as a licentiate. Only you must make up your mind to avoid
strong drink."