Strangely enough, however, it was the saintly old man who differed from him on so many points in politics and theology who best understood him at that time. He received him as if nothing had happened since their last meeting, bidding him welcome with the same warmth and the same perfect courtesy he had always shown him.
“They may abolish bishops,” thought Gabriel, “yet somehow the best description of Bishop Coke will always be the title, ‘Right reverend father in God?’”
The head of Bishop Swinfield, half-concealed by the ends of the broad orange scarf which girded Gabriel’s buff coat, quickly attracted the old prelate’s attention.
“I had heard of the mischief done just now,” he said. “I see you bring me an unharmed fragment; I am glad you rescued that.”
“I thought, my lord, you would value it, and perhaps have it in safe hiding till quieter times.”
“I will give it to my son, ’twill be safer in his care; and to tell the truth, Mr. Harford, I cannot expect to live till quieter times. These troubles are breaking my heart.”
“My lord, indeed ’twas scarce the fault of the soldiers that harm was wrought in the cathedral; they were led on by a poor fanatic fellow whose father was grievously misused by Dr. Laud.”
“And therein lies my worst sorrow,” said the Bishop, with a long sigh. “Our system seemed to us right and good, yet it hath alienated the people, and wholly failed. Believe me, Mr. Harford, I am not thinking of the misguided zeal of your soldiers, but of my own mistaken zeal in the past. Yet we meant well—God knows we meant well.”
Gabriel was silent. Before a humility and sorrow such as this words seemed a profanation.
He glanced round the room, the very one in which he had offered his services to the Parliament during the Earl of Stamford’s occupation six months before. Again his eyes turned to the picture of Hilary as a child, and the Bishop, noting this, asked if he had seen her, and by his kindly sympathy gradually drew from him the whole story.