The Bishop's Shadow

by I. T. Thurston

"How long?"

Mrs. Martin understood. She answered, sadly, "A few days--possibly only a few hours. He lies as if he were asleep, but it is not sleep. I think," she added, with a glance at the boy's heart-broken face, "I think you can see him for a moment if you would like to."

Theodore nodded and the housekeeper added, "Come then," and led the way to an upper room.

The boy followed with such an aching heart as he had never imagined that a boy could have.

The sick room was darkened and a nurse sat by the bedside. Theodore stood for a moment looking down on the face so dear to him, and so changed even in the few hours since last he saw it. He longed to press his lips to the hand that lay outstretched on the white coverlet, but he did not dare, and after a moment he turned and left the room in silence.

Mrs. Martin followed him down the stairs. At the door he stopped and looked at her, tried to speak but could not, and so went away without a word. He knew that never again should he see his friend alive, and he did not. Before the next night, the bishop had been called to go up higher.

When the announcement of his death appeared in the papers there was a request that no flowers be sent. Theodore did not notice this item, and so on the day of the funeral he carried to the house some of the roses that he knew the bishop had loved most, and Mrs. Martin herself placed them in the cold hand that a few days before, had been laid upon Theodore's head. All the gold of the earth, had it been offered to the boy, could not have purchased from him the sweet memory of that last look and touch.

On the day of the funeral, the church where the service was held was crowded, and the streets without were filled with a throng as vast as that to which so short a time before, the bishop had spoken, but what a difference was there in look and manner between the two great gatherings! Here, every face was softened, every heart tender with grief. They called him "our bishop," and they felt that they had lost one who loved them--one who was indeed their friend.

But not one, whether within or without the church, not one grieved more deeply for the grand, beautiful life so suddenly cut off than did the lad who stood without and listened to the solemn tones of the great organ, and watched with eyes dim with tears as the black-draped coffin was borne out to its burial. The boy stood there until the last of the long line of carriages had passed him; then he stepped forward and, alone and on foot, he followed to the cemetery.

When all was over, he went sorrowfully homeward, feeling as if there was a great blank in his life--a blank that could never be filled; that the world could never again seem bright to him; but that evening Mr. Scott came, and his affectionate sympathy comforted the boy's sore heart. His teacher made him feel that now, more than ever, he must be "the bishop's shadow." To Theodore, his small ministries to the forlorn and suffering ones about him, seemed, indeed, as nothing when he recalled the wide-reaching labours of the bishop, but as the days went on these small ministries grew to be the joy of his life.