The eternal masculine

by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

THE YOUNG MAN WITH WINGS

What if some morning when the stars were paling,

And the dawn whitened, and the East was clear,

Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence

Of a benignant spirit standing near:

And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,

“This is our earth—most friendly earth and fair;

Daily its sea and shore, through sun and shadow,

Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air;

“There is blest living here—loving and serving,

And quest of truth, and serene friendships dear;

But stay not, Spirit! Earth has one destroyer,—His

name is Death—flee, lest he find thee here.”

And what if then, while the still morning brightened,

And freshened in the elm the Summer’s breath,

Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,

And take my hand, and say: “My name is Death.”

Sill’s verses occurred to the bishop as he lay awake in the night. A thing had startled him during the day, and sleep had not come promptly as ordinarily. He listened, aware of each shading of sound, to the pleasant, dim noises of the midnight world. A thin wind rustled the trees outside his windows, it might be as if a crowd of light-footed ladies in silk petticoats passed unendingly by; far off in the road hoof-beats approached rapidly and rapidly died away; a dog—little Café, for he knew his voice—sent a shower of light, futile barks after the distant horse; a shutter somewhere banged aimlessly at intervals. Each accustomed impression, unnoted on common nights, reached his brain as a revelation, because of that which Everingham, the village doctor, had said in the afternoon.

So he lay awake and thought about the new prospect. It excited him as the prospect of a trip to Europe might excite him. However, Everingham was not certain; he had asked for a consultation, and the bishop had telegraphed Jim Fletcher, as he had called him since the two had roomed together at college fifty years back, to come down when it was possible. And Jim—Doctor James Austin Fletcher, as he was known over all America—Jim, to the bishop, had answered that he would be in Lancaster to-morrow at eleven. Jim would settle it. Meantime, what was the use of staying awake? The fact seemed to verge on emotionalism. He had believed himself free of that. He had believed himself free, moreover, of a thought which had once poisoned his days—free, but here it was following him, and in his veins throbbed the old uneasiness, familiar yet for all the years between. “It’s not my affair now,” he spoke aloud, as if reasoning, and then words came to him which he knew well, and he said them and peace came with them. He turned toward the square of the window where the opal night poured in and lay on his forehead and filtered to his nerves; with that the rhythm of Sill’s verses caught and rocked him as his mother would have rocked him seventy years before, and he went quietly to sleep.

For an hour he slept dreamlessly, and then, at about one o’clock of the morning it might have been, through the hushed chambers of his brain there moved a presence from beyond them. The bishop put out his long, strong fingers as if in greeting, and a smile came on the sleeping face—the dream was pleasant. Some one, whom he was glad to see, stood by him, by the bed in the big, airy room, and smiled down at him. And it surprised the bishop only a very little that his visitor, the tall young man, had wings. He could plainly see the face, a face which he knew. The wings were a touch uncommon, but why not? The figure was more beautiful because of them—it was good to see them. Why did he know the face? And with that the young man spoke three words:

“Go to Lancaster.” And the bishop woke up.

He smiled broadly at the convincingness of dreams in general, at the distinctness with which the imagined voice still sounded in his brain: “Go to Lancaster.”

It was exactly as if some one had wakened him with the command. But the face was gone, and he could not recall it. Puzzled, smiling, he fell asleep. It might have been half an hour later that the dream came again. Again the tall figure, bringing, it seemed, an atmosphere of unlimited easy power, stood by him; and the bishop, looking up unafraid, saw a light on the face as if to emphasize—to impress it on his memory. And again the clear voice spoke the same three words:

“Go to Lancaster.”

And the bishop woke up. Through him there appeared to be an infusion of the strength which had been a vivid impression from the dream. He felt suddenly young, filled with energy. It was a long time since he had felt like this—Everingham said the malady had most likely been gripping him for years. Was it possible that he was shaking it off? That he was going to get well, in spite of Everingham’s croaking? Well, Jim would settle that to-day. A man could trust Jim. In the meantime it was a great thing to have this glorious spasm of health, whatever it might mean. It cleared the brain—and the bishop fell to thinking. As he opened the door of his mind there met him the thought which he had said was not now his affair. Back of it was a procession of very old memories. He had not for years let himself review these in detail, yet the details were sharp. With his fresh sense of buoyancy he went back now to events which had shaped his career.

The foundations of lives are mostly alike, and mostly of elemental stuffs. On these rise superstructures of infinite architecture: a hovel of odds and ends here, a grim walled castle there, or a stately palace, or buildings filled with machinery, or sunshiny homes—there is never an end to the sorts. But under all the sorts lie masses of primeval rock, called by a few names such as Ambition and Love and Hate and Remorse and Honor and others. The bishop’s business was with foundations, and he uncovered now in the night those under the dwelling he had made for himself. He found there one jagged rock, which cut him as he passed over it; its name was Remorse. In the crystal of his life was one cloud which darkened the light. The bishop thought, as he had thought many times before, of a man who had “found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully and with tears.” He clinched his strong fist.

“If I might set that one thing right—if I might find him and tell him, and make amends with all that I have, then I could go,” he spoke aloud.

With that he felt a desire to turn over his memories and put them in decent order, and he bent his mind to consider the old, long story. Wide-awake, clear-headed, with his new strength pulsing in him, he went over it all, and perhaps an hour passed, and at the end his mind rested, relieved. He put away the unrest; he thought happily of every-day things, of this big, pleasant place of his which he loved, the sunshiny garden, the shady driveway, where he mounted his horse of a morning. And the horse, Billy, and the joyful big dogs, and the little dog, Café, who was always so ridiculously glad when he came back from his ride—he had a great affection for them all. The gentleness of such thoughts about him, again he fell asleep.

And as soon as he slept it seemed the young man with wings stood again by the bedside, a shaft of strong light on the face; and again he spoke, imperatively:

“Go to Lancaster.”

And at once the bishop awoke. As before, he could not remember the face which he had seen so distinctly a moment ago; but flowing through him was still the strange tide of strength, and with it an uncontrollable conviction that he must obey this command—he must go to Lancaster. He laughed at himself.

“Ridiculous!” he said aloud, attempting to break the spell by the sound of his own voice.

But the dream would not let him alone, and the new energy pushed with it. Against his will, against his judgment, much against his sense of humor he began to dress. Suddenly, “That settles it,” he said. Lancaster lay across the river from the bishop’s place; the only way to get over was by a ferry, and the ferryman lived on the farther side. He could not get to Lancaster. “I’ll go back to bed,” he said, and sat motionless. He could not go back to bed. There was an impulsion, which would not be put down, to get dressed, to ride to Lancaster. He was astonished, displeased. “I must be losing my mind,” he said; and went on dressing.

He stole down softly, not to waken the household; it was a quarter after three o’clock. He found the key of the stable, then turned into the dining-room and groped in the dim place for the sugar-bowl, and dropped three or four white lumps into his pocket.

Billy’s eyes gleamed over the low door of the box stall; when his master spoke Billy whinnied softly as if he understood and would be quiet. He blew a clean breath in the bishop’s face, and as the door slid he doubled up his forefoot to shake hands. It was the best “good morning” Billy could say, and he got his sugar for it. The bishop placed the saddle and buckled the girths, and Billy put down his big, gentle head and pushed his nose into the bridle, proud of his accomplishment. “Good Billy,” and the bishop smiled, and patted him, and mounted with a spring such as he had not given for five years. He would have to turn back when he got to the river, as Higgins would be asleep on the farther side; but he would have a ride and see the sun rise. He had never felt more like it; he was delighted that he had been imposed upon by that overbearing young man with wings. What was the lost identity of that face? The bishop puzzled over this as Billy cantered along, plunging and snorting with joy to be out in the freshness.

The garden lay in the half-darkness; it was late June, and there were roses; a lattice arch loomed heavy with honeysuckle, and the damp smell met him like a wall; down by the stream there were rows of vague lilies. Everything was quiet, yet awake—waiting for him. It seemed as if some joyful secret was abroad which only he knew—and maybe Billy. The gray, long road was in it, and the branches bent, whispering it, and the cold, wet leaves of the trees that touched him were full of significance. The world was his alone, a world opening in his hand. Sometimes, not often, the glory of the star we live on comes fresh, and suddenly it is not words but a reality that we are part of the glory and of the fight, a cog in the scheme, each least one. The bishop, in the brightening morning, with no sound on earth but the wind and Billy’s hoof-beats, threw out his arm boyishly.

“Si la jeunnesse savait—si la vieillesse pouvait”—he said aloud. “I am old—I know, and to-day I am young—I can. It’s a good day. Something good is to happen to-day.”

The ferryman’s house was on the Lancaster side, but a hut was on this shore, where he sat often in the daytime. Out of this rose a man’s figure, and stood with arms stretched and head back in a giant yawn.

“What business have you got over here at this hour, Higgins?” the bishop demanded with asperity.

“Well—well, sir,” Higgins stammered through the yawn, and the bishop laughed.

“Me! I’m waitin’ fo’ Squire Fassett. County Co’t to-day; las’ month I slep’ over, an’ the Squire, he come in early with his cattle, and had the devil’s own—excuse me, sir—had a hell of a time—excuse me, sir—I’m sleepy—had a right bad job wakin’ me. He talked some about shootin’, so I thought I’d sleep handy over this side.”

“Good,” the bishop said thoughtfully. “You’ll ferry me over? I can get to Lancaster?”

“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