IN WHICH THE BISHOP OF BLANFORD RECEIVES A BLACK EYE.
"The Bishop of Blanford!" announced the page, as he threw open the door of Sir Joseph Westmoreland's private consulting-room.
Sir Joseph came forward to meet his distinguished patient, and said a few tactful words about having long known his Lordship by reputation. The Bishop smiled amiably, and surveyed the great London physician through his glasses. The two men were of thoroughly opposite types: Sir Joseph tall, thin, wiry, his high forehead and piercing blue eye proclaiming a powerful mind well trained for the purposes of science; the Bishop short and broad of stature, with an amiable, rounded, ruddy face, and the low forehead which is typical of a complacent dogmatism.
An ecclesiastic had come to humbug a man of science. Could he do it? Not really, he told himself; but then Sir Joseph was so courteous.
"I ventured to consult you," said his Lordship, in reply to the physician's questions, "because I feel the need of rest, absolute rest. The duties of my diocese are so onerous—and—er—in short—you understand."
"Quite so, quite so," said Sir Joseph, who understood that there was nothing whatever the matter with his patient.
"To be entirely alone," continued the Bishop, "for a space of time, without any distractions—not even letters."
"Most certainly not letters, your Lordship."
"How wonderful you men of science are!" murmured the ecclesiastic. "You understand me exactly. Now if I could have six weeks—or even a month."
"A month, I should say," replied Sir Joseph. "After that you might begin to receive your correspondence."
"Yes, a month would do—that is—er—where would you advise me to go?"
"What climate generally suits you best?"
"I—er—was thinking of Scotland."
"In May?" queried the physician.
"A friend would lend me his country place—and I—er—should be so entirely alone."
"Quite so. Nothing could be better," replied his adviser, who, like all men who have risen in their profession, had attained an infinite knowledge of human nature.
"And you will be so kind as to write me a note, stating your opinion—about the rest—and—er—immunity from letters—and all that," said the Bishop, depositing with studied thoughtlessness a double fee on the table, "for the benefit of my—my family. She is—they are—I mean—that is, she might not realise the importance of absolute rest, and"—as a brilliant thought occurred to him—"and you'll give me a prescription."
"Certainly," said Sir Joseph. "I'll do both now."
"Thanks," murmured the Bishop, and, receiving the precious documents, he took his leave.
The great physician's letter he put carefully in an inside pocket; the prescription he never remembered to get filled.
"A month," he said to himself; "that ought to be time enough." And he hailed a cab, and driving promptly to the nearest American steamship office, he engaged a passage forthwith.
"I wonder what Sir Joseph thought about it," he meditated, as he paid for his ticket. In this respect, however, he did his adviser an injustice. Sir Joseph never thought about it at all. It was not part of his profession.
Most people would have united in saying that the Bishop of Blanford was an exceedingly fortunate man. No one was possessed of an estate boasting fairer lawns or more noble beeches, and the palace was a singularly successful combination of ecclesiastical antiquity and nineteenth-century comfort. The cathedral was a gem, and its boy choir the despair of three neighbouring sees, while, owing to a certain amount of worldly wisdom on the part of former investors of the revenues, the bishopric was among the most handsomely endowed in England. Yet his Lordship was not happy. All his life long there had been a blot upon his enjoyment, and that blot was his sister, Miss Matilda Banborough.
Miss Matilda was blatantly good, an intolerant virtue that accounted for multitudes of sins in other people. Her one ambition was to bring up the Bishop in the way she thought he should go, and hitherto she had been wonderfully successful. All through his married life she had resided at the palace and been the ruling power, and when his wife had died twenty years before, snuffed out by the cold austerity of the Bishop's sister and the ecclesiastical monotony of Blanford, Miss Matilda had assumed the reins of power, and had never laid them down.
The Bishop's wife had been a weak, amiable woman, and her last conscious request was to be buried in the sunlight, but her sister-in-law remarked that "her mind must have been wandering, for though Sarah was vacillating, she was never sacrilegious." So they buried her in the shadiest corner of the cloisters, and put up a memorial brass setting forth all the virtues for which she was not particularly noted, and entirely omitting to mention her saving grace of patience under great provocation.
Since that time the Bishop's son, Cecil, had been a bone of contention at Blanford. His aunt had attempted to apply the same rigorous treatment to him that had been meted out to his father; but the lad, whose spirit had not been broken, refused to submit. At first, in his boyhood days, his feeling was chiefly one of awe of Miss Matilda, who always seemed to be interfering with his pleasure, and who made the Sabbath anything but a day of peace for the restless child. Then came long terms at school, with vacations to which he never looked forward, and then four years at the university, when the periods spent at Blanford became more dreaded.
Cecil tried bringing home friends, but there were too many restrictions. So, after graduation, he drifted off to London, where his aunt prophesied speedy damnation for him, and never quite forgave him because he did not achieve it. During these years his visits to the palace became fewer and fewer. Then he wrote his novel, which proved the breaking-point, for Miss Matilda forced his good-natured, easy-going father to protest against its publication in England, and the young man, in impatient scorn, had shaken the dust of his native country from his feet and departed to the United States, bearing his manuscript with him.
That was a year ago, and Cecil had never written once. His publishers would not give his address, and if he received the letters sent through their agency, he never answered them. His father pined for him. His aunt waxed spiteful, and so firm was her domination over the Bishop that he never dared tell her of his secretly formed plan of going to America to find his son. Hence his visit to the great London physician.
The little plot worked out better than he could have hoped. Sir Joseph's letter proved convincing, for Miss Matilda had a holy awe of constituted authority, and would no more have thought of disobeying its injunctions than she would of saying her prayers backwards. His Lordship accordingly went to London, and disappeared for a month—ostensibly to Scotland, in reality to America; and no one on the Allan liner suspected for a moment that the little man in civilian's clothes, whose name appeared on the passenger-list as Mr. Banborough, was the Bishop of Blanford.
His thirty days of grace allowed him but two weeks in the States, and here fortune seemed to have deserted him, for, on his arrival, he learned that his son had gone South. A wild-goose chase to Washington consumed much valuable time, and, with only forty-eight hours to spare, he arrived at Cecil's quarters in New York on the day when that young gentleman was madly driving a Black Maria out of the city.
Discouraged and disheartened at his lack of success, the Bishop took a train for Montreal, and found himself, about ten o'clock on that evening, owing to faulty orders and a misplaced switch, stranded at a little station just on the dividing line between Canada and the United States.
"And when can I proceed on my journey to Montreal?" he queried of the station-master.
"Sure I don't know," responded that individual briefly. "We're bound to get things cleared for the White Mountain Express if possible."
"And when is it due?" asked his Lordship.
"Eleven forty-five a.m., if she's on time."
"I think," said the Bishop, "that I'll remain for the night, and go on at a more seasonable hour to-morrow. Is there any one here who can put me up?"
The station-master scratched his head in perplexity, glancing off to the horizon where glimmered a few lights from scattered farmhouses.
"I dunno what to say," he replied. "I reckon Deacon Perkins would have put you up," pointing to the nearest light, some mile and a half distant, which at that moment disappeared, "but," added the official, "it looks as if he'd gone to bed. Folks don't stay up late round here. There ain't much to do."
"But," protested his Lordship, "there's a story over this office. Surely you can arrange something for me."
"Well, you see it's this way," said the man. "There's two police officers and a journalist has reserved it for to-night, 'cause they's on the lookout for a batch of prisoners 'scaping to Canada. But if so be's you wouldn't mind sleeping in the refreshment-room, I could let you have a mattress, and make you up a tidy bed under the bar."
The Bishop reflected that, though such quarters were hardly in keeping with the dignity of an episcopal prince, they were better than nothing, and as he was travelling incognito it did not much matter. So he cheerfully accepted, and going out on the platform took a seat on the narrow wooden bench that ran along the front of the station, and lighted a cigar to while away the time till the preparations for his retirement were completed.
It was pitch-dark outside, and the presence of three glimmering points of light were the only indication of any other occupants of the bench. But he rightly conjectured that the smokers were the policemen and the journalist of whom he had heard, and, having nothing better to do, he entered into conversation with them.
"Oh, yes," said Marchmont, for it was none other, "we've got a big job on hand to-night, sir, if we pull it off."
"Is it uncertain, then?" asked the Bishop.
"Well, of course we don't know which way they're coming. There was a sensational escape of a lot of Spanish spies from New York this noon. When I left we only knew they'd gone North. Since then they've been heard of near the Hudson River. Of course it's practically certain they'll make for Montreal, as it's the nearest point at which they have a consul, and my knowledge of human nature leads me to think they'll take the most indirect route; so I came on here by the first train, and if we can catch them when the Express comes through to-night, it'll be a great scoop, and certain promotion for me."
"Who compose the party?" asked his Lordship.
"The whole thing seems to be rather mysterious," said the journalist. "There's a woman conspirator in it, and one or two men, but the identity of the leader, the man who planned the rescue and had the unparalleled audacity to represent himself as one of our reporters, is quite unknown to the police."
"But you?" said the Bishop.
"Oh, I," replied Marchmont, "of course I could hazard a guess as to his identity." And putting his hand before his mouth, so that his two companions should not hear his words, he added, with a tone of triumph in his voice: "There's not the remotest doubt in my mind that the young man who ran off with the Black Maria was none other than the Secretary of the Spanish Legation."
"Ah," said his Lordship, who was getting bored, "very interesting, I'm sure. I think I'll turn in now. Good-night." And a few minutes later he was safely ensconced under the bar and in the land of dreams, where Miss Matilda and a prison-van figured conspicuously.
After an interval of time, the Bishop was sleepily conscious of the arrival of a train, accompanied by a certain amount of excitement, but it was not till several hours later, when dawn was just beginning to break, that he was rudely awakened by some one attempting to appropriate his resting-place. At the same moment he became conscious that a considerable uproar was going on in the station, and a voice from above, which he recognised as the journalist's, called out:
"Say! One of that gang's in the bar! I saw him come up to the door as I was lying in bed!"
Before the Bishop, however, became sufficiently wide awake to assimilate thoroughly these astonishing facts, the intruder, who was grotesquely armed with a can of hot coffee and a loaf of bread, deposited his burdens, and falling upon the recumbent ecclesiastic, proceeded to sit upon his head, forcing his face into the pillow, and rendering it impossible for him to utter a single sound. The half light and the suddenness of the attack had not permitted his Lordship to see the features of his aggressor. He had, however, no intention of submitting tamely to such an unpardonable outrage; and when the station-master and the two policemen, unaware of the proximity of the object of their pursuit, had rushed through the room and out at the back door, and the stranger, releasing the Bishop, was preparing to fly also, his Lordship, forgetful of the professions of peace which his calling assumed, smote the intruder lustily in the ribs. He received in return a smashing blow in the eye which made him see a multitude of stars, and before he could recover himself the stranger had seized the coffee and the loaf and dashed through to the front of the station.
The Bishop staggered to his feet, groping blindly about, while he heard the voice of the journalist, who was leaning over the banisters in night attire, calling vociferously to his companions that the man was escaping by the front.
"Did he hurt you?" he asked of the Bishop.
"Yes," replied his Lordship, still blinded by the force of the blow. "But he got as good as he gave. I didn't have four years of athletics at the 'varsity for nothing."
"Oh, they're sure to catch him," said the journalist
"I hope so," cried the Bishop, "for he richly deserves it."
It is probable, however, that his Lordship would have modified his desire for vengeance had he known that his aggressor was his own son.