“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.