The born preacher had forgotten his audience, as a born preacher must. He pushed back his chair and clasped his strong, old hands behind his head, and his eyes were on fire.
“Danger, squalor, men; great forests, dirty camps, and me, just me, changing eternity, opening humanity for caged brutes. Preaching behind a barrel with a cloth over it, firing rounds of hot shot from that pulpit. Exciting—I should say so! I might be knifed, I might be blessed—you couldn’t tell. It was living!” He caught a quick breath as if the thought of those vivid days filled his lungs.
The boy was staring, amazed, eager. “Bishop,” he threw at him, “bishop—you are Gerard—McVeigh.”
“Of course.” The arms came down, the bishop stared too. “Of course. Why?”
“I only knew your name this morning, Bishop McVeigh. Of course that name—all the world knows it. Your work in the camps—it’s a romance. My mother used to read all she could find about it. Why, I knew that she knew you! She was proud—that you had been her friend.” The boy looked at the older man with a thought dawning in his eyes.
The bishop spoke hurriedly. “I’m glad that she remembered me. But I mustn’t digress. I want to tell you—”
“But,” the boy interrupted, “excuse me, sir—but—you refused two bishoprics, and you’re—Bishop McVeigh.”
The old face flushed a trifle, and then: “You know all about me, I see,” and he smiled. “Yes—I wanted to stay with my loggers. But this diocese—” He hesitated. “I had business training. It was needed here. I came reluctantly, and because it seemed a duty, but I’ve been many times rewarded.” He looked about the bright garden with an odd expression, as a stranger might have looked, taking it all in. “I’ve been happy here for years. I could be happy here years longer.”
“I hope you will be, bishop,” the boy said, a bit shyly as if afraid to be thought presuming to make a speech so obvious to a man so famous.
The brilliant old eyes moved to meet the lad’s with an odd look. “Talk to me about yourself,” he said shortly, and then, without waiting, told the story of his dream. “I can’t remember the face of the angel,” he said. “I wish I could. It bothers me. But he was the angel of life for you, my lad, that young man with wings.”