"I had supposed the old man had principles about Sunday travel," he said to his wife, "but it seems he is coming in the morning, after all. He might at least have sent me word."
"Telegraphing in the country is—difficult, sometimes, I have heard," replied the lady, vaguely. She was a handsome, childless woman, with the haughty under lip of her class. Her husband spoke cheerily, but he was not at ease, and she did not know how to make him so.
The Sunday morning train came in from the country station forty miles back, but the old clergyman was not among its passengers. Now thoroughly alarmed, the vestryman had started for his hat and coat, when his parlor-maid brought him a message. It had been left at the door, she said, by a messenger who brooked neither delay nor question, but ordered her to tell the master of the house that the supply for Saint Agatha's was in the city, and would meet the engagement at the proper time and place. The old clergyman, the messenger added, had been suddenly stricken with a dangerous illness, and could not be expected; but his substitute would fill the pulpit for the day. The vestryman was requested to feel no concern in the matter. The preacher preferred retirement until the hour of the service, and would fulfil his duties at the church at the appointed hour.
But when the vestryman, feeling flurried despite himself, tapped at the door of the luxurious vestry-room, gracefully refurnished that winter for the rector with the sore throat who was in the south of France, he found it locked; and to his unobtrusive knock no answer came. At this uncomfortable moment the sexton tiptoed up to say that the supply had requested not to be disturbed until the service should begin. The sexton supposed that the clergyman needed extra preparation; thought that perhaps the gentleman was from the country, and—ah—unused to the audience.
"What is his name? What does he look like?" asked the chairman, with knotted brows.
"I have not seen him sir," replied the sexton, with a puzzled expression.
"How did you receive the message?"
"By a messenger who would not be delayed or questioned."
Struck by the repetition of this phrase, the chairman asked again:
"But what did the messenger look like?" The sexton shook his head.