Chapter VI: Part 6

“Get to Lancaster?” the man repeated. “Nothin’ simpler, bishop; I reckon,” he added, apparently to Billy, “there ain’t much you want of these parts you _can’t_ get.”

There was a three-mile stretch on the Lancaster side; the bishop took it slowly; it was six when he turned into the main street, where the early birds stared as Billy’s tread echoed from the cobbles. Embarrassment seized the bishop. This was an absurd performance. As soon as Billy and he had breakfast he would ride back to the Thickets. He drew up at a hotel and gave Billy over to a groom, and strolled to the echoing dining-room, killing time over details. He had to wait for breakfast, and when it was over he found that he had managed the day up to eight o’clock, and with that the thought occurred to him that he would wait and meet Doctor Fletcher at eleven. The ride had not tired him; in fact he felt like a walk on top of it, a good way to get rid of some of the time on his hands. There was a park on the other side of the city, and he had not seen it for months.

The landlord of the Harrington House stood on the steps and watched. “There goes the right sort of parson,” he observed to the clerk. “Look at him beat it up the street. He ain’t too pious to be a human, and that’s what rakes in the souls. And he’s awfully good comp’ny. Heaven for climate, but hell for comp’ny, folks say; but the bishop’s got hell queered when he starts business up on high.” In many forms good-will followed the short figure and the fine gray head; eyes brightened to see how well he looked, how young his gait.

It was quiet in the park. It lay high, and through a vista cut in juicy green he looked across the valley, where his home lay, the big place with fields and thickets and trees, and the large, sunshiny garden. “I’m sorry it all has to go to strangers,” he said aloud; then his mouth twisted into a queer, lovable, sidewise smile that was his, and he lifted himself from the bench to start back to town. With that came a clatter of muffled hoofs down the soft bridle-path, and he turned with a rider’s interest in riders. A young man was galloping fast toward him through the shifting light and shadow, and the bishop, still smiling, suddenly started, horror-struck. Out from a by-path in front of the rider ran a little boy, late to school, hurrying across the park with his books and slate, oblivious of everything else. The bishop shouted, and the rider saw in time and pulled in, and the child was safe. But it had been a close shave. The horseman went on, and the bishop fell to thinking. It was odd that this thing should have happened twice in two months—almost identically this thing. Early in May he had landed from England at Quebec, and had spent three days in Montreal, and one morning he had driven up the mountain, Mount Royal, the park for which nature has done more, perhaps, than for any other in the world. It was bright weather, and as the carriage climbed the hanging road he had met many people on horseback. Around a turn, where the green mist of leaves arched over a level stretch, a horse and rider cantered toward him through the speckled sunlight—a splendid brown horse carrying a big young man, bare-headed, fair-haired. As pleasant a sight, the bishop thought, as one might see on earth. Then without warning there was a sound which made his pulse stop. A woman at the roadside screamed as a creature screams in a last agony. And the bishop followed her wild eyes. In the middle of the sunny road, where the shadows twisted bewilderingly, a little lad of three or four bent over a ball which rolled from him, and the flying hoofs were almost on him. The horse came galloping—a noble picture—the little white figure, stooping, fearless of death, in the sun-splashed road, death bearing down gloriously.

“Ah!” It seemed as if the round world had gasped that. At the last second the young man had seen, and with a turn of the hand, with all his strength, with the skill of a finished horseman, had thrown his mount. Back they rolled together in a dangerous mass, the immense hoofs and the bright head flashing. And the child scrambled away, and his mother sobbed and did not even look as he ran toward her, for before her eyes the man who had given him back to her lay where the body of the horse must crush him the next second. And as the horse rolled the great hoofs floundered in air, and somehow righted, and within six inches of the helpless head rolled back. In two minutes more they were all grouped in the road, a joyful and excited company—the woman sobbing with happiness now; the baby shrieking for sympathy; the driver swearing gleefully, regardless of the bishop, and the young man who had just grazed death up and punching anxiously here and there at his trembling animal. The bishop held the beast’s head, and the boy, the cause of the sensation, played calmly with his ball. In two minutes more the woman and children had gone on, but the bishop was still helping the young man look things over.

“Jove, that’s luck—that’s luck I wouldn’t have dared hope for,” the boy brought out. He was an attractive lad, well bred and radiantly good-looking, an Englishman, yet with a breeziness not English, and a peculiarity in his speech. It might be Canadian, the bishop thought as he noticed—it is hard for Americans to judge. “That’s ripping. Thank you, bishop. Not a strap or buckle wrong, and the beggar not scratched. I couldn’t do it again, don’t you know.” He patted the frightened horse.

“How do you know I’m a bishop?”

The boy laughed, pleased. “You are, aren’t you, sir? That was easy.” He put his hand on his own collar and nodded at the bishop’s. “A clergyman, of course—but I’d have known it anyhow—there’s something—and—” he hesitated, and then looked the older man in the eyes frankly, deferentially. “It’s plain to see, sir, if you will excuse me, that you’re a personage. I’m not taking liberties, am I?”

“Not a bit. I like it. I’d walk a mile for a compliment.” Then he laid his hand on the broad shoulder above him, for the lad towered. “My boy, I must tell you something also. That was a fine thing you did.”

The blue eyes opened wider. “Oh, you mean throwing the horse? It’s a dangerous trick, of course, but I had to. I didn’t want to, but the youngster was close. You’re a horseman—there wasn’t any other way, was there, bishop?”

“No,” the bishop said slowly. “There wasn’t any other way,” and let it go at that.

“I’m glad he’s not hurt,” the boy explained, “because he’s not mine. He belongs to a friend I’m staying with. That is”—he laughed—“I’m at his house. He and his people went off yesterday, and I was due to start for the States last night. But I stayed over for a ride. You see I was brought up on a horse, on the other side of the world, that was. And I’ve not had the chance lately, and I’ve missed it. Henderson would mind most awfully if I’d hurt Thunderbolt, and so should I. I’m keeping you, bishop.” He held out his hand. “Thanks, awfully, for helping me,” and the stiff formula held a heartiness which went to the bishop’s heart. He was attracted beyond explanation by this boy. He tried to think of a reason to lengthen the incident.

“You’re sure you’re not shaken up? I could drive you home with pleasure.”

But the young fellow laughed. “I’m perfectly fit; thanks ever so much. I hope we’ll meet again, bishop.”

They clasped hands as if both were sorry to part. “If I can ever do anything for you, you’ll try to let me know, won’t you?”

“I will, bishop,” the boy said heartily. And neither remembered that they did not know each other’s names, for it seemed an old friendship. And the young fellow vaulted into the saddle and was gone.

But in the mind of the bishop all that day, and for days after, there lingered a recollection of the big young figure, and the honest blue glance, and of the simplicity with which he had offered his life for a strange child’s. Seldom had the bishop met any one who had so pleased him—and he did not know his name.

“I should like to own a boy like that,” the bishop thought then, with a touch of the loneliness which sometimes caught him.

He had said that over to himself more than once in the two months since the incident, and now, in the park of Lancaster, as the horseman disappeared into the June greenness, and the startled little boy hurried off to school, he thought of his garden and his house, and the things dear to him, which must go to strangers, and the bright face of the rider on Mount Royal came with a throb of pain, and he felt his isolation and said it again: “I should like to own a boy like that.” Then he trudged cheerfully back toward town, putting away, as was his habit, any personal sadness. And when he got into the city, it was only ten o’clock—an hour yet before Doctor Fletcher’s train. He strolled down Brandon Street, past the court-house. The great doors were wide open, and through them rang a dictatorial voice which he knew well, the voice of Judge Lovett. The bishop halted; the winning, odd smile by which people who loved him remembered him lighted his face—a smile which drew his strong mouth sidewise in a characteristic line, keen, humorous, kindly. He liked Judge Lovett. He turned into the court-house, and dropped in the back row by the side of a man who made way for him deferentially.

“What’s the case?” the bishop whispered.

“A murder case—young fellow’s being tried for murder done twenty miles from here, about two months ago—trying to prove an alibi, but it looks right black. That’s him, the big, light-haired chap.” And the bishop looked, and saw the rider of Mount Royal.

Judge Lovett’s voice went on, emotionless, incisive. “You say that you were in Montreal on the sixth of last May; can you prove it? Is there any one who saw you and talked to you there who would remember you?”

The bishop, standing up, staring, his pulse beating in jumps, listened to the answer.

“There is one man whom I talked to when I was riding on the mountain,” the frank tones trailed off rather hopelessly, “but I don’t know his name or where he lives.”

At the back of the court-room there was a stir. A sudden voice lifted across the place, startling judge and jury and the crowded benches of listeners. “I am the man,” the bishop spoke loudly and walked forward down the aisle to the rail.

There was a dramatic silence. The court-room seemed to catch its breath as one man. The judge’s dominant speech broke the hush.

“Bishop,” he asked, “did you see this young man in Montreal on the sixth of May?”

“Yes.”

“Please take the stand,” said the judge.

The bishop testified. People hardly breathed for fear of missing one of the direct words. It was clear in five minutes, and before the district-attorney finished his examination of twenty minutes or so there was no question, so that when the jury went out the judge directed them to bring in a verdict of acquittal. The bishop, stepping down from the stand, came to the prisoner. He put out his hand, his face alight, and the boy caught it in both his, and his mouth worked.

“Bishop, a man can’t say ‘Thank you’—there aren’t any words—” He stopped.

“My lad,” the little bishop said soothingly to the towering young giant, and patted the huge fists with his free fingers as if he spoke to a child—“my lad, of course there aren’t any words—there never are if you need them. _I’d_ like to lay my hands on one or two to tell you how glad I am. And so glad to see you besides; I’ve thought about you. How did you come here?”

“It’s a long story—I’ll tell you. But, bishop, you—did you drop from heaven? I wanted you so—it’s a miracle.” And people stood about laughing and crying and listening openly, but the two did not notice.

“A miracle—yes, I think likely. But at the moment I strolled into the court-room because I was killing time till—Mercy!” The bishop jerked out his watch. “Nine minutes of eleven—I must rush.” He caught the boy’s hand again. “Come out and see me—the Thickets—any one will tell you—I can’t miss that train.” He looked up into the boy’s face with half appeal, half command. “Don’t you leave till I’ve seen you again.”

“Not for worlds, bishop.”

“Good-bye!” and the short figure bolted from the court-room with an impetuousness which nearly knocked over a mighty policeman on the steps.

Billy, harnessed to a runabout, trotted briskly along the road which he had covered under saddle at peep of day, and behind him two gray-haired dignitaries chattered like boys. By common consent the main subject was not to be discussed till after lunch, but the coincidence of the dream and the scene in the court-house were talked over with interest.

“It was extraordinary—quite,” Doctor Fletcher acknowledged. “The verses in your mind gave rise to the young man with wings; but what made him tell you to go to Lancaster?” The bishop was silent. “Had you been planning to go to Lancaster? To meet me, for instance?”

“No. I didn’t feel up to the trip.”

“Some shaft of memory projecting itself on the weakened consciousness during sleep,” Doctor Fletcher reflected. “A lucky accident for the prisoner.”

“It was not an accident,” observed the bishop calmly. “It was an intervention.”

The doctor considered. “A lot about dreams—unknown. Theories. Memory, personality, suggestion, telepathy—more, likely before we let go and say supernatural.”

“If there is anything supernatural.” The bishop caught it up. “Perhaps it is all in nature, only we don’t know. The most advanced of us stands before psychology like an ancient cave-dweller before electricity. We see gleams from the penumbra of a new universe. Two hundred years ago everybody jumped at that word supernatural, and burned some of the people concerned and worshipped others. To-day we clamor as promptly that there isn’t any penumbra or any universe, but somebody has scratched a match. However”—the clear, assured voice, so compelling in its flexibility, its sympathy, changed swiftly—“however, Jim, we both use very beautiful long words when we prod each other a bit. Don’t we?”

“Why do you put rubber pads on that horse in summer?” inquired the doctor, and the talk fell to Billy’s shoeing.

After lunch the bishop and the great doctor, the “Jim” of his lifelong friendship, went into a pleasant room with broad open windows looking over the drowsy garden. Muslin curtains flapped in the breeze; bees hummed outside; the fragrance of roses was in the air, and a puff of wind lifted to them the smell of honeysuckle. The old friends sat and smoked and talked cheerfully of big affairs and of little ones, of the bills before Congress, of the last scientific discovery, of the doctor’s grandchildren, of boys of fifty years ago and doings of them then and now. Then, when the cigars were finished, Everingham, the village physician, had come in and there had been twenty minutes of serious short questions and answers, and then Everingham had gone and the two were together alone again. Doctor Fletcher was silent. He got up and went to the window and stood with his back turned and his hands in his pockets looking out on the garden. With that the telephone on the study-table rang and the bishop went to answer it. But as he stood with his hand at the receiver, ready to take it down, he turned his face to his friend with an unspoken question, and the great doctor wheeled sharply and crossed the room in long strides, and his arm was around his friend’s shoulder.

“Tell me, Jim,” the bishop said quietly.

“I can’t,” said the doctor, and his forehead suddenly was against the black clerical coat.

Then the bishop, with his calm hand over the shaking one, put the receiver to his ear.

“Yes, this is he,” he answered composedly. And in a moment: “Oh—yes. I’m glad. Surely, my boy. Come at once.”

Under the big oak in the garden, by the stream which was the garden’s boundary, were placed wicker chairs and a table. One went through the honeysuckle arch to get to them. There were tall lilies along the stream and blue ranks of larkspur towered beyond; the hollyhocks were showing spots of color in the high rows against the hedge; stone steps led to the little river, and a boat rocked, tied; the water tinkled; it was as pleasant a place as might be where two old friends should sit of a warm afternoon and smoke and talk. They went there, the bishop and his guest.

Doctor Fletcher, straining after composure, bent over a blossom.

“A verbena, isn’t it?”

“Jim, you’re probably the original of the man in the story who knew only two botanical names of flowers—aurora borealis and delirium tremens. That’s phlox.”

The hearty contempt helped to steady the stricken man. No one of his patients had ever seen the great physician unnerved, but to-day the match shook which he held to his pipe; for a moment he could not light it. The bishop laughed and his mouth twisted whimsically.

“Nonsense, Jim. You mustn’t be upset. You and I know better. It is a crisis, of course, but there is nothing final about it—you know all I can say. Old age and death are just a sort of measles in the cosmic childhood of us eternal people. We’ll sit in gardens and talk together thousands of times again—better gardens than this, maybe, though I can’t imagine it.” He looked about him wistfully. “To my mind it’s like the hill of Zion here—‘a fair place, and the joy of the whole earth’—‘the whole earth’—that’s me.” He went on: “I’m not bothered. That is—well, if I could manage two things the way I want I’d be satisfied to leave the job and move on.”

“What things?” the doctor demanded eagerly, stretching his fingers across the table between them.

“You can’t manage them, old man.”

“What are they?” the doctor insisted.

The bishop drew a long puff at his pipe and gazed off toward the hollyhocks, where a vivid blur of cherry lay in the swinging green. He took the pipe from his mouth and held it on the table. The back of his hand just touched his friend’s. “Two things. One is, if I could get hold of Basil Lynn and make that thing straight. The other”—he hesitated, and then snapped out: “I do hate to have this place go to the Williamsons.”

Out of his sadness the doctor laughed. “It shouldn’t have to,” he agreed. “Why not make a hospital?”

“Not much.” The bishop’s eyes flashed. “Butchers in white pajamas—like you—around my halls? No, thank you. And I’ve left stacks of money to hospitals, Jim—don’t nag me—you know that. This place is different—it’s got to belong to people, not charity boards. Yet Tom Williamson doesn’t differ much from a board,” and he smiled sidewise.

“Thoroughly good.”

“Good? Oh, mercy, he’s good,” groaned the bishop. “But he’d never give Billy sugar. And imagine the dogs playing with Tom Williamson! And so dull, Jim—so deadly dull! If I heard—Tom—talking platitudes in my garden”—the bishop brought his fist down with a thump—“I’d come back. I’d have to. The digitalis would die—drought kills it.”

“Tom’s not the point,” Fletcher suggested. “Not your cousin.”

“No, it’s Anita,” assented the bishop, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. Then, confidentially: “She’s so fat.”

“Jerry,” said the doctor, “you may be a bishop, but you’re unregenerate and full of sin.”

“I am ashamed, Jim. Poor old Tom—he is a nice fellow, and Anita is kind. I’m sorry, Jim,” the bishop said penitently, and then changed as swiftly. “All your fault. I only talk this way to you. You always did inspire me with the devil.” And they laughed a little together.

A silence fell again. The pipes burned, and the bishop’s dark eyes stared absently across the tranquil spaces of lawn and the flower borders to the fields spread beyond in sunlight.

At length: “‘Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams,’” he mused aloud.

“Boy with wings?” Fletcher asked.

“Yes. I wish I could remember the face. Queer I can’t. A light was on it twice as if to give me a good chance.” He was silent again; then: “Jim, I wish I owned a boy like that.”

“I wish to heaven you did, Jerry,” and with that a horse turned in at the gate and trotted up the gravel. Through the arch the two saw a tall figure spring down.

Black Peter, the butler, brought him out to them in the garden and the doctor stayed to regard him gravely and approvingly, and strolled away with inelastic step across the lawn to the house.

“Young man,” shot the bishop at him, “the first thing I want to know is your name.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “You don’t know my name, sir? But how should you? It’s Basil Lynn.”

In the still, bright place time and tide seemed to stop. The pipe in the bishop’s hand fell and rolled away, and the newcomer sprang after it and brought it back, smiling. Then he saw the bishop’s face.

“What is it? Are you ill, sir?”

The bishop took the boy’s hands and stared up at him, and stared—and yet stared. And the boy turned a slow red, but stood quiet. “Why, it’s plain,” the bishop said. “Your father’s size, but your mother’s son. Her son.”

The lad’s face lit. “Why, bishop—you knew her?”

The bishop still questioned the bright face with his close gaze.

“I don’t remember my father,” the young fellow said. “He died when I was a year old—they say I’m built like him. But this is my mother’s”—he put his hand through his thick, straight, very light hair. “I’m mostly like her, I think.”

“She is alive?” the bishop asked.

“Oh, yes—bless her,” the boy beamed. “But I’ve had to leave her in England.” He hesitated. “I can tell you anything, bishop. We’re poor—I’ve come over to make money, and then she’ll come. She wants to live in America. I must get to work. I’m anxious to work—I’m in a hurry to get my mother.”

“‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,’” remarked the bishop.

The boy looked dazed—almost smiled. The bishop was not at all solemn or what is called religious; he had the air of stating something which gratified him.

“Sit down,” he ordered. “I’ve a great deal to say to you.” He broke off and stared once more at the straight-featured, glowing young face. “It’s just the sort of boy I like,” he considered out loud, and “it” looked astonished and reddened, and laughed and looked pleased, but the older man did not notice. With preoccupied movements he filled his pipe and packed it, and lighted it and drew a puff, as if his soul were on it, the boy meantime bursting with wonder. “A great many things to say to you. How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.” A moment’s silence.

“It was eleven years before you were born. You were the only child?”

“No—two others, older; they died.”

The bishop reflected, his luminous eyes on the boy’s face. “You are like her. I’m glad.”

“So am I,” the lad smiled, and waited in an agony now of anxiety to know what it all meant. A minute, two minutes, and he still waited.

“Let me think,” the bishop crossed his legs with deliberation, and puffed a cloud of smoke and gazed at it, absorbed, as it rolled toward the hollyhocks. “Let me think.”

“Yes, sir,” and the lad shut his lips, as it might be to shut in something which kicked and struggled. The bees hummed; the bishop smoked as if hours were nothing, nor yet a young man exploding with curiosity. At length he put the pipe down on the table and pushed it from him.

“I’d better tell you the whole story,” he said gravely. “I have never told it before. Thirty-five years ago—eleven years before you were born—I was a lawyer, alone in the world, as I am now.” He stopped a moment, and suddenly smiled at the listener. The lad flushed as if he had been caressed. “As now. I met—a young girl—and fell in love with her. It was—the only time in my life. She was much younger than I. I can see now that she never cared as I did—my impetuousness forced her—but I did not see that then. We were engaged. Then, the autumn after, a man—a stranger—came. He had letters to me from a cousin of mine. My cousin spoke highly of his ability and of his social qualities. He gave him also letters to a Mr. Seaton, the president of a large mine, the Scylla Mine. I felt—his—charm at once. He was a big fellow, very handsome, very attractive. I did what I could for him—it was a good deal, for I knew many people. Through me he went into a business—temporarily, for we both thought his best chance would be with Seaton. But Seaton was off in China and would not be home till spring. Other chances came, one or two almost as good as the Scylla, but I felt sure that with my influence to back him he would be taken into the mine, and it ought to mean a career. Then I began to see that—she,” the bishop spoke a bit difficultly, “was attracted by him. She did not realize at first, and I tried not to believe it. But I grew to—” The speaker hesitated and then looked the boy gently, frankly in the face. “I loved her. I grew to hate—the man. It poisoned everything—hate does, you know. One day alone in my office I was brooding over it, and Seaton came in, the president, you remember, of the Scylla Mine, just home from China.”

“‘You know this man?’ he asked me.

“I said ‘yes,’ quietly enough, and Seaton explained that they wanted a superintendent, that Jerome, my cousin, had written enthusiastically of this man, but that he did not put entire trust in Jerome’s enthusiasm. He had heard,” the bishop hesitated, “he had heard something not altogether favorable about—about the man.”

The boy listened, bewildered. What was this story—why should he know it?

“I did not believe this at the time. I knew the man to be able; I thought him fitted for Seaton’s place. I made up my mind what to do, believing this. Seaton went on to say that he would rather take my opinion.

“‘You know him well?’ he asked. ‘You’ve known him some time—seen quite a bit of him?’

“I said simply: ‘Yes.’ You know, my boy, that one can at times lie and steal and commit murder with a syllable? Well, I did that. But Seaton wanted it clear. He looked at me sharply.

“‘I’d be obliged for your opinion,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do as you say. Tell me this: would you yourself put the man in a position requiring not only brains but trustworthiness?’

“I waited a minute, a whole minute I think, not because I had one shred of doubt as to the crime I was about to commit—I waited to give emphasis to my answer. Then I lifted my head and looked Seaton in the eyes and said: ‘No.’ And many a man has been sent to state prison for less wickedness than those two small words, that ‘yes’ and that ‘no.’”

The wrinkled hand that lay on the table was clinched; never, in all the sermons that had cut to the souls of men, had the wonderful voice, with its intense reality, sincerity, been more charged with power than as the old clergyman told, in bare words, the story of his own sin. The boy thrilled as if a drama was played before him; it continued.

“I blasted the man’s future with two words. It closed the way for him in America. Seaton and I were his sponsors—any opening worth while would be referred to us; Seaton was not a man to keep still about such things. Within a week—” The bishop stopped. The strong tone hardened a little. “Within a week—she—the girl—told me that she was ready to keep her word and marry me but that she loved him. No”—the old man answered a look from the young one impetuously—“no—no one may blame her. She was honorable, true—only—she cared for him, not me. How could she help it?” The bishop’s sidewise smile came swiftly, without bitterness, only sadly. “He was brilliant, winning, and a great, splendid picture of a man. And I was—as you see—small and ugly.”

A glance of surprise flashed from the young eyes. “I don’t see, sir,” he said bluntly, and stared at the figure in the chair, a strong note in deep black of clothes and sharp white of collar, against the softness of the summer setting.

It is said that in another life the bodies we shall wear—not of flesh and blood, but as real—will be the close expression of personality; life loves sometimes here to take a human face and work out on it that thought. The bishop’s shone with the signs of such modelling. The man who at thirty-five had been, for all his intellect, ugly, at seventy-five carried a face whose radiance startled strangers in the street.

The bishop answered the boy’s look more than his words with a quick smile, and his eyes were pleased. Then they grew sober. “I must tell you the whole of this—you’ll see why. I went to Italy the night that she told me, and when I came home she had married him and gone away. I heard of them after that once—that his affairs had shaped as I’d planned—he had found no door open to him and had gone finally to—to Australia.”

The boy started. “Australia?” he repeated.

“Yes. I tried not to know of them for three or four years, so it happened I had no clew when I wanted it. For I wasn’t quite bad enough to be satisfied with the successful villainy. I had been brought up to be honorable, and I grew restive. Moreover”—he hesitated, and then his glance rested a moment on the thatch of fair hair and he went on—“moreover, I was unhappy to think that I had brought unhappiness to the woman—I loved. The woman whom I have loved—always. I wanted to make her life bright—I had shadowed it. That thought haunted me. After three or four years I made up my mind to find him and tell him and make amends. I had a great deal of money. I had no doubt I could find them. But I couldn’t. I moved heaven and earth, but I couldn’t.

“And success poured in. I was a proverb for luck. It was all empty to me—and so I handled it carelessly, and everything prospered—the world was my oyster. And there was no one to work for but myself, and I loathed myself; with every good gift I was wretched. Men kill themselves sometimes in such a mood—I was near that.”

The flowing voice was arrested. The bishop glanced up contemplatively and lifted the discarded pipe.

“You’re not going to stop, sir?” the boy ventured, dismayed. The magnetism which had held all audiences, always, did not fail with this audience of one. The flashing, humorous smile answered.

“I’ve not tired you yet? I was thinking if I could make you understand what happened. It was an event, yet it’s hard to make it show as a fact. Probably you haven’t yet had the experience which could explain what I mean. So you must take my word for it that there is an experience which comes to many people and which throws a new light.” He stopped as if choosing his words. “We stumble along with our eyes bound tight with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We see under a bit, but it’s blind work, and one gets knocked and banged. Then some one comes along and lifts the bandage, or a man may push it up himself when things hurt—the event is objective or subjective. Anyhow, suddenly one sees the road and the light that shines down it. It makes the difference.”

The boy nodded. “I’m not very old,” he said, hesitating. “But I’ve gone through a bit and I believe I understand.”

“Good!” the bishop threw at him. Then: “It’s queer,” he mused, “that we don’t keep clear vision when we’ve got it. It’s so much easier. But most of us don’t. We mostly pull the same old wool back over our eyes and begin bumping about again. A few don’t—they’re the saints. They live on earth, and after, in the kingdom of heaven. Mighty few—but—I think—some.” The bishop’s eyes were as if they took in things not present. “Most of us fall back; and that’s what sin is—to walk in darkness deliberately. However—this is a shame—I’m preaching at you, and taking advantage.” His smile flashed. “But that illumination of sight which can’t be described any more than you can describe love or hunger happened to me. I went to church—I didn’t do that often—and I heard a sermon. The message arrived down that much-travelled road. A man preached, and his key unlocked my door—and I came out. It was an old idea which released me, but I found it new. It was the idea that the best thing to do with a life is to give it away. When I left church that day I’d decided to do things. I went into the ministry and went West into logging-camps. Doing that, remorse lost its sting. I wasn’t allowed to right the wrong I’d done, but it seemed coming close if I righted other wrongs.”

The eyes of the old churchman had travelled away beyond the burnished young head, beyond the sunny hedges, into years gone by. He was reviewing his work and it interested him; mostly he did not remember the present or the listener as he talked, as the blaze of his spirit lighted up the old battle-field.

“The men I lived with were rough as beasts, but I really liked them, and so they let me help them. They didn’t know that they were helping me. I told them the truth and at first they were going to shoot me.” The bishop laughed. “Oh, yes, several times. But they got into the habit of letting me live and letting me talk, and by degrees I showed them things which staggered them. Many of them had never seen decency, and the minute they looked at it they liked it. People do—there are few bad people. Mostly ignorant.”

The born preacher had forgotten his audience, as a born preacher must. He pushed back his chair and clasped his strong, old hands behind his head, and his eyes were on fire.

“Danger, squalor, men; great forests, dirty camps, and me, just me, changing eternity, opening humanity for caged brutes. Preaching behind a barrel with a cloth over it, firing rounds of hot shot from that pulpit. Exciting—I should say so! I might be knifed, I might be blessed—you couldn’t tell. It was living!” He caught a quick breath as if the thought of those vivid days filled his lungs.

The boy was staring, amazed, eager. “Bishop,” he threw at him, “bishop—you are Gerard—McVeigh.”

“Of course.” The arms came down, the bishop stared too. “Of course. Why?”

“I only knew your name this morning, Bishop McVeigh. Of course _that_ name—all the world knows it. Your work in the camps—it’s a romance. My mother used to read all she could find about it. Why, I knew that she knew you! She was proud—that you had been her friend.” The boy looked at the older man with a thought dawning in his eyes.

The bishop spoke hurriedly. “I’m glad that she remembered me. But I mustn’t digress. I want to tell you—”

“But,” the boy interrupted, “excuse me, sir—but—you refused two bishoprics, and you’re—Bishop McVeigh.”

The old face flushed a trifle, and then: “You know all about me, I see,” and he smiled. “Yes—I wanted to stay with my loggers. But this diocese—” He hesitated. “I had business training. It was needed here. I came reluctantly, and because it seemed a duty, but I’ve been many times rewarded.” He looked about the bright garden with an odd expression, as a stranger might have looked, taking it all in. “I’ve been happy here for years. I could be happy here years longer.”

“I hope you will be, bishop,” the boy said, a bit shyly as if afraid to be thought presuming to make a speech so obvious to a man so famous.

The brilliant old eyes moved to meet the lad’s with an odd look. “Talk to me about yourself,” he said shortly, and then, without waiting, told the story of his dream. “I can’t remember the face of the angel,” he said. “I wish I could. It bothers me. But he was the angel of life for you, my lad, that young man with wings.”

The boy’s face filled with a rush of color. As the bishop’s sentence ended, he sprang to his feet. He spoke in an awed voice. “Bishop, I hope you won’t think me irreverent, but I believe God sent you that dream—straight.”

“Yes,” the bishop answered calmly. “I think so.”

“Let me tell you,” the young man begged. “Last night for me was—horrible. I was here to help my mother. I’d got tied up in that ghastly net, perfectly innocent of it all. My mother was going to hear, instead of the good news I’d hoped to send, that I was to be hung for murder. It would kill her—kill her with torture. And I couldn’t do—one thing. I thought of you, of course, and it came to me what you’d said that morning as I went off—do you remember? You said: ‘If I can ever do anything for you you’ll try to let me know, won’t you?’ That pleased me, you know, bishop. I’d never met anybody like you, and that you should take the trouble seemed wonderful. I knew you meant it, too. So last night in my trouble I thought of that and of how I did not know even your name. It’s an odd thing to talk about to any one, bishop, but I have to tell you. I prayed. Prayed for all I was worth that you’d help me—that you should be let know. I said aloud over and over: ‘Make him go to Lancaster—go to Lancaster.’ I thought with all my strength; I tried to get a word to you, somewhere, somehow—I couldn’t tell where or how. And it got there. Good Lord!” the boy gasped.

The bishop gazed at him thoughtfully. “Yes, it got there. It’s wonderful, of course—most things are wonderful. But it doesn’t surprise me. It’s not the first time that the Lord has made his angels messengers. ‘Angel’ means messenger, as you know—that’s their business. I wish I could get that face,” he complained half to himself. “It bothers me.”

The great young fellow was shaking. He stared with enormous eyes at the bishop. He was beyond words. But the bishop smiled his quaint, queer smile and went on quietly.

“Doctor Fletcher, whom you met just now, would call this affair suggestion or telepathy. I call it ‘the Lord’s doing, and marvellous in our eyes.’ Probably we mean the same thing—a mere difference of phraseology.”

The boy burst forth. “It was my angel of life. He and you gave me my life. Bishop—I don’t know how to say it, but—I’d do anything. If only I could show you!”

The bishop reached across the table and laid his long, steady hand on the trembling fingers. “I’m going to ask you to do something,” he said reassuringly.

“Will you?” The boy’s face lighted.

“But tell me about yourself and your plans.” And in a few words it was told; a meagre story, yet wide with courage and manliness. “So you’re only from Australia this six months, and you’ve got no friends and practically no prospects,” the old churchman reflected aloud, and then was still, his eyes alive with thought. “My boy, I’ll just say a word—first. I intend to look after you. You’ve dropped into my clutches, and I mean to clutch you. You’re the best thing that could have happened to me on earth. If you’ll do one thing for me.”

“What?” the astonished young man threw at him.

“I didn’t quite finish my story. You must wonder why I told it to you. You have it in your mind? That I ruined a man’s career? Deliberately, out of jealousy and hatred I ruined a man’s career?”

“Yes,” the boy answered and smiled, but the bishop did not smile.

“Do you want to know the man’s name?”

“Yes.” No faintest thought of what was coming concentrated the vague surprise of his mind. The bishop’s dark, luminous eyes played across him. A cricket sang his sudden drowsy song from the lily bed.

“The man’s name was Basil Lynn,” said the bishop.

The boy stared blankly for a long minute. Then: “You mean—it was—my father?” he brought out in successive shocks of words.

“Yes.” The grave eyes read him.

“Then—it must have been my mother—it was she—who hurt you?”

“Yes.”

The boy waited, battling for the ground under his feet. At length he lifted his head, and his eyes met the older man’s with a collected seriousness. “What is the thing I can do for you, bishop?”

Over the face of the old clergyman, as he watched, came a deep sadness. “Perhaps—I’m afraid—it’s asking too much of you,” he said. “I want you, in your father’s name, to forgive me.”

A flame leaped into the boy’s look. “Bishop—oh, bishop!” He bent and caught the old hands as if they were a woman’s hands. “As if there could be any debt between us that wasn’t _all_ on my side,” he cried. “She—my own mother, who is me—she made you unhappy and drove you to the one wrong thing you ever did. But we won’t talk about it!” He was very close to the black-clothed, quiet figure, and his big fingers fell on the bishop’s shoulder. “Talking’s no use—it’s time that tells. Wait till I can put in years to prove that I mean what I say. You’ll let me be—the rest of your life—a little bit what a son might have been?”

He stooped anxiously to the face below, and with that he saw that the eyes of the bishop were filled with tears. And through them he was smiling.

“It’s _just_ the sort of boy I like,” brought out the bishop emphatically. “My son—the rest of my life. But—” He stopped a moment and then spoke in a delighted tone. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “That’s the greatest thing anybody in the world could do for me. And you’re the only one who could do it. But it isn’t for long, my dear—” He hesitated a mere second. “Doctor Fletcher told me to-day that I’ve only two months more to live.”

At the quiet, cheerful words the lad started erect, horror-struck, and through the boughs of the great oak a slanting sun-ray fell suddenly on his young face and played there, and the bishop tossed up his hand sharply.

“The face!” he cried out. “It was your face! Your angel of life!” and then, as the lad dropped on his knees and bent his head wordless on the table before him, the bishop laid his hand on the fair hair as if in a benediction, and suddenly once again the queer sidewise smile, amused, whimsical, lighted his face.

“My angel of death,” said the bishop.

AMICI

AMICI

Who cares for the burden, the night, and the rain,
And the long, steep, lonely road?
When out of the darkness a light shines plain,
And a voice calls hail and a friend draws rein
With a hand for the stubborn load?

He strolled across the road and stood with both hands on the rail which guarded the landslide, and looked into the distance. Below him, at the foot of the landslide and rolling to the river and lodged in the hollows were tin cans and burnt-out kettles and broken china; the Western city had dumped its refuse along this way. From below, untidy children screamed in an untidy garden. But he did not hear or see these things.

Back of him a woman ran down a path to the gate which he had left swinging, and latched it and stood a moment watching him. All his life he had looked into the distance, she considered. A smile came, for the woman loved him. She lingered, gazing at the tall figure with its air of distinction, its shabby clothes. A breeze lifted the loose hair, and she knew, though his back was turned, how a brown-gray lock had blown across the broad forehead—the forehead of a thinker, a dreamer. She sighed. The wife of an unsuccessful inventor is likely to sigh often. She turned to go back, but a little lad scrambled suddenly over the fence.

“Letter, Mrs. Ellsworth,” he exploded. “Mother says come s’afternoon. Mother says postman made mistake.” He was scrambling back in the same second, with consistent suddenness.

She looked at the letter, saw that it was addressed to her husband, glanced at him, and went with it into the house.

The man, unconscious, still stood with those glowing eyes miles off, where the river widened and lawns sloped to it and large houses overlooked it. He threw back his head and gazed high into the orange and rosy sky, and laughed.

“Up as far as that gold-edged fellow—farther. It seems queer that I’ll be swimming there before long. But I shall. And _my_ aeroplane won’t tip over.” He thrust his hands into his pockets and smiled happily. “I’ve done it; just to get it on the market and I’ll have made good. I’ll have earned my place in the world. And a fortune for Margaret and Jack. Her drudgery over. Margaret,” he repeated half aloud; and again: “Margaret.” Then a cloud drowned the brightness from his face. “If I could get money for the model,” he spoke aloud. “The thing is so sure. It’s a hideous joke not to have a thousand or two now.”

His mind, working this way and that trying to find a solution for the problem, his thought travelling along all possible ways, came shortly on another thought, stirring sorely at a touch.

“The fellows,” he murmured. “A lot of them have money.” He drew his hand sharply from his pocket and thumped on the rail. His dreamy eyes flashed. “Not if I starve,” he cried. “Never that. I won’t poison the memory of college days. I’ve got my place among them yet; they don’t know; nobody knows.”

He dived into a coatpocket, and brought out a letter. Looking over his shoulder, one might have read that the class of such a year of Yale University would hold its thirtieth reunion three months from the date; that it was hoped that John Ellsworth of this class would be present; that he was requested to let the class secretary know. Signed with a name which brought to the man’s lips a half-laugh.

“Little old Saint Peter,” he murmured.

With that his face was grim. Peter Price had sent a letter with the formal notice; a friendly, easy letter, taking it for granted that all of the “boys” would bring to Alma Mater this June some simple gifts of the years. Such gifts as success and good spirits and manly work well done; money to enrich Yale perhaps; perhaps big lads to carry on her banner; perhaps honored names for her roll of fame. The man’s head bent farther over the flimsy rail. He caught at it again with both hands. He stared, not away now at the gleaming, darkening river, but at the rubbish—broken pottery, old chair-legs, things whose day was done. His day was done; he was fifty-two, and had not made good; he was a failure. They had expected great things of him; he was to have been a Newton, an Edison. He was to have made the class illustrious; they had said it, patting him on the shoulder in generous boy fashion, that last day in New Haven almost thirty years ago. He remembered well how, a dozen boys, they had stood together on the campus, under the elms, very tender-hearted over each other at this parting of the ways, very shamefaced at their unaccustomed softness. Jimmy Pendleton, his chum, with an arm stretched to Ellsworth’s shoulder—for Jimmy was short and chubby—had fallen into prophecy.

“We’re all great men, that’s sure, but it’s Johnny who’s going to be our crown of glory. He’s going to invent things. Flying-machines will be play. You listen while I tell you that this class will be known as the class of John Ellsworth.” And the others had growled assent in deep, friendly young voices, while Ellsworth called them all “darn fools,” with love and gratitude bursting his ribs. He had felt fairly sure that Jimmy was right.

“Apollo, too,” Jimmy went on, for Ellsworth had been voted the “best-looking man.” “And our star singster. I’m no inventor, and I can’t sing, and something tells me I’m no beauty either,” and he rumpled his shoe-brush black hair sorrowfully.

Again the group agreed cordially. “You sure are not, my son.” Peter Price had spoken. “You’re neither inspired nor beautiful—so’s you’d notice it; but don’t worry, you may be an honest man yet.”

Ellsworth, across the stretch of years, recalled such details. The years had been before him then, and sunshine had flooded them. But one by one his inventions had gone wrong; fate had been against him. And now that he had at last a certainty he must wait, honor and wealth within reach of his hand, till some other man, whose hand was not weighted by poverty, should lift it and grasp success. It is a thing that happens to inventors; many times a man has died broken-hearted close to his heart’s desire.

“Down and out,” Ellsworth said. And stood, bent, in the twilight.

So he turned and came slowly to the large, old, half-empty house, and a sound of music floated to him, and a light shone through the curtained glass. He halted. He must not frighten her. He opened the door, trying for commonplace cheerfulness. But she saw. She was playing at her old tinkling piano; the music stopped.

“What is it, John?”

It was futile to lie to Margaret. “Just bothered over my job,” he said.

Her arm was about his neck. He drew her down beside him on a sofa, and like an unhappy child laid his head against her shoulder.

“Don’t bother, dearest,” she spoke.

“It’s not just that, Margaret,” he said then. “It’s everything. I’m down and out. I’ve kept you down with me. You might have been rich, happy—”

“I am happy,” she interrupted.

“You’re wonderful,” he said. “My best friend; my only friend now. I used to have a lot and they’re all gone. Except you, my darling, I haven’t a friend in the world.”

“John, don’t,” she begged. “It’s not our affair if we have friends. We’ve just got to live our lives as well as we can, and let the rest come or go.” Her eyes fell on the letter. “For you, John. It might be from a friend, this very letter. Read it, dear. It’s from New York. It might be good news.”

He shook his head; then tore the envelope. As he read his face darkened. His wife waited.

“What is it?”

He stared angrily at the paper. “It’s—insult,” he said. “Read it.”

She took it from him and the man went and stood with his head against the mantel, his face in his folded arms. She read, and waited a long minute, considering. “I can’t see it that way.”

He whirled about. “You can’t see it as an insult that some man should want to pay my way? As if I were a pauper?”