A silence fell again. The pipes burned, and the bishop’s dark eyes stared absently across the tranquil spaces of lawn and the flower borders to the fields spread beyond in sunlight.
At length: “‘Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams,’” he mused aloud.
“Boy with wings?” Fletcher asked.
“Yes. I wish I could remember the face. Queer I can’t. A light was on it twice as if to give me a good chance.” He was silent again; then: “Jim, I wish I owned a boy like that.”
“I wish to heaven you did, Jerry,” and with that a horse turned in at the gate and trotted up the gravel. Through the arch the two saw a tall figure spring down.
Black Peter, the butler, brought him out to them in the garden and the doctor stayed to regard him gravely and approvingly, and strolled away with inelastic step across the lawn to the house.
“Young man,” shot the bishop at him, “the first thing I want to know is your name.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “You don’t know my name, sir? But how should you? It’s Basil Lynn.”
In the still, bright place time and tide seemed to stop. The pipe in the bishop’s hand fell and rolled away, and the newcomer sprang after it and brought it back, smiling. Then he saw the bishop’s face.
“What is it? Are you ill, sir?”