I know that I must have spoken aloud, because I remember the start of
consciousness and discomposure occasioned by the voice of Percivale
greeting me.

"I beg your pardon," he added; "I did not mean to startle you, Mr. Walton.
I thought you were only looking at Nature's childplay--not thinking."

"I know few things _more_ fit to set one thinking than what you have very
well called Nature's childplay," I returned. "Is Nature very heartless now,
do you think, to go on with this kind of thing at our feet, when away up
yonder lies the awful London, with so many sores festering in her heart?"

"You must answer your own question, Mr. Walton. You know I cannot. I
confess I feel the difficulty deeply. I will go further, and confess that
the discrepancy makes me doubt many things I would gladly believe. I know
_you_ are able to distinguish between a glad unbelief and a sorrowful
doubt."

"Else were I unworthy of the humblest place in the kingdom--unworthy to be
a doorkeeper in the house of my God," I answered, and recoiled from the
sound of my own words; for they seemed to imply that I believed myself
worthy of the position I occupied. I hastened to correct them: "But do not
mistake my thoughts," I said; "I do not dream of worthiness in the way of
honour--only of fitness for the work to be done. For that I think God has
fitted me in some measure. The doorkeeper's office may be given him, not
because he has done some great deed worthy of the honour, but because he
can sweep the porch and scour the threshold, and will, in the main, try to
keep them clean. That is all the worthiness I dare to claim, even to hope
that I possess."