But there was in him the natural priestly
power, which the priest by ordination may have or miss. It was because
men and women realized in himself the presence of a travailing,
questioning, suffering soul, together with an iron self-repression, that
those who suffered and questioned came to him, and threw themselves upon
him; often getting more buffeting than balm for their pains; but always
conscious of some mysterious attractions in him, as of one who, like Sir
Boris, had seen the Grail, but might never tell of the vision.
Victoria was truly attached to him. He had been with her during the days
of her husband's sudden illness and death; he had advised her with regard
to the passing difficulties of Tatham's school and college days and
pointed a way for her through many perplexities of her own. Duddon was as
much of a home to him, as he probably possessed in the world. When he had
worn himself out with some one or other of the many causes he pursued in
South London, working with a sombre passion which had in it very little
of the mystical joy or hope which sustain others in similar efforts; when
he had scarcely a coat to his back, or a shoe to his feet; when his
doctor began to talk of tuberculin tests and the high Alps; then he would
wire to Duddon, and come and vegetate under Victoria's wing, for just as
many weeks as were necessary to send him back to London restored to a
certain physical standard. To watch Harry Tatham's wholesome, kindly,
prosperous life, untroubled by any of the nightmares that weighed upon
his own, was an unfailing pleasure to a weary man.
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