"He started with me, but as we were waiting at the church to see the men who are doing something to the water-power that works the organ, Will Burt, one of the young doctors from the Bridgeton Hospital, came past on horseback, riding like mad. Stephen waved to him, for as a boy he had been one of his music pupils, and he stopped short. It seems that he was on his way to the Rectory on an errand that he had undertaken for its very strangeness.
"Late last night a short, thick-set man was brought into the hospital, a brakeman from one of the through freights, and apparently a new hand on the road, for he did not know of the low bridge at Moosatuck Junction, or understand the signal lights. He was swept off and crushed against the pier. Though hurt to death, he had remained conscious, and early this afternoon, when rallied to the utmost by drugs, asked to speak to one of the physicians alone. Burt, chancing through the ward, was appealed to. There was something about the man that struck him at once; past fifty, and bearing the signs of dissipation and recent neglect of his person, he did not come of the grade who keep to the road at his age. When he spoke, his words confirmed the impression.
"'What place am I in, Doctor?' he began.
"'Bridgeton, Connecticut,' Burt answered.
"The man repeated the name to himself several times, and then asked:—
"'Would that be near a little place called Harley's Mills?'
"'The next town to it.'
"'Is there a clergyman hereabout who would, think you, do an errand for a man that, being already dead in his legs, cannot do it for himself, a matter of—well, we'll say business rather than religion?'
"Burt told him that there was a Roman Catholic priest always within call, besides ministers of other denominations that could be had; but the man sighed, hesitated, and finally said: 'I'm English born, though I've long ago sold out my birthright, yet there's that much left of it that makes me want to say what I must to the one that's the nearest like him that used to teach us our duty in the little church betwixt the wheat fields over there. I want the one that has the white robe, the book, and the law behind him; but maybe, sir, you do not understand?'
"Burt did understand, however, and remembering that the rector of St. John's in Bridgeton was ill, came galloping over for Stephen. Why he did it, or put Stephen to the trouble, he himself could not say, for maimed railway men and similar requests are not uncommon in a hospital. Stephen borrowed a horse from Hugh Oldys and fully expected to be back again by six; it is after five now. Shall I make the tea, Miss Emmy? He would be vexed to have you wait."