Part 13

"I say, it's yellow like Pen's big new one," he said. And the car stopped in front of the post-office ten yards away. Bob grabbed the bishop's arm.

"That's Geordie Smith," he said. "That's Geordie getting out. I could tell his legs a mile off. Where's my man?"

But the man didn't come, and Geordie was back in his car. He went off sweetly.

"The north road," said Bob. "I'm sure he'll take it. He's going quick. We can't wait for my man."

He grabbed the steering-wheel, shifted the lever, and the car moved off on the first speed.

"I'll--I'll go a little way with you," said the bishop.

"You'll have to unless you jump," replied Bob. "I'll keep in sight if I die for it."

This encouraged the bishop very much, of course, and it is possible that he might have jumped if he had not caught sight of the dean and a minor canon, who were staring hard at him with their mouths as wide open as the grotesque muzzle of a Gothic gargoyle.

"I'll not jump," said the bishop, and he waved his hand to Mr. Dean. "No, I'll not jump before the dean if I die for it."

Before he knew it, they were out on the road, and the dust of the yellow car in front was like the pillar of smoke to the Hebrews in the desert. Bob let her out to the second speed, and the bishop gasped.

"We go very quick," he said.

"Oh, not at all," replied Bob. "I don't want to go fast. If Geordie thinks he's being followed, he'll go sixty miles an hour, and I don't think I can do more than forty-five in this."

"Can't you?" asked the bishop. "I'm almost glad you can't."

"Is this the great north road?" asked Bob.

"No," said the bishop, "it's the road to Crowland and Spalding. I've often driven on it, but never so fast as this."

Geordie's car drew ahead, and Bob put his car on the third speed.

"Bob!" cried the bishop, as he clutched the sides of his seat. "Bob!"

"Yes?"

"Isn't this an illegal speed?"

"Rather," said Bob.

"I cannot aid and abet you in going at it, then," said the bishop, as firmly as he could. "I must request you to be legal."

Bob kept his eyes ahead.

"Please don't talk," he roared, "or I shall have an accident. You must remember I'm not at all experienced."

What could the poor bishop do? He groaned and sat very tight indeed, and, seeing the landscape eaten up by this monster at the rate of thirty miles an hour, came to the conclusion that there was nothing stable in the universe, not even theology. And about a mile ahead of them rose a pillar of dust.

"This is a remarkable situation," thought the bishop; "a situation which requires some firmness of mind. I am a bishop, and I am no better than half my clergy who break the law regularly. This must be nearly a hundred miles an hour! I wish, I almost wish Penelope had died soon after I christened her. This Bob is an infernal young ruffian; his manner is not respectful. I should like to cane him. But how can I stop him? I do not understand these strange brass things. I could as soon play the big organ in the cathedral that I wish I was in. If I pull Bob he will have an accident. If I speak to him, I may divert his attention--oh!"

They executed a fowl which had not learnt to stand sideways, and slammed through a village, scattering several ancient inhabitants who were enjoying a gossip in the middle of the road. As a matter of fact, they were damning Geordie Smith in heaps when the pursuing Bob fell upon them. They passed a church, and the bishop saw a clergyman staring over the wall. The village fell into the category of things which had been and slid away behind them.

"We are stopping still and the world slides," said the bishop, "but that was Griggs, I know, and he knew me. He has eyes like a hawk's. I am much surprised at myself. I have seventeen engagements this afternoon. Ridley will be alarmed. The dean--oh!"

They slammed a barking dog into the middle of the week after next.

"That was a near shave," roared Bob, exulting. "I've seen a smaller dog than that capsize a bigger car than this!"

"May I speak now?" implored the bishop.

"Righto," said Bob. "Here's a good straight bit. What is it?"

He was the superior: he was a big bird and the bishop was a beetle. He was the head master; his lordship of the see of Spilsborough was a new boy. The bishop felt small, terrified, amazed, humiliated.

"Are we going a hundred miles an hour?" asked the bishop.

"Rot!" said Bob, "we're only doing about thirty."

They scorched through quiet Crowland.

"Please put me down," implored the humble bishop.

"I can't stop," said Bob. "I'm afraid he's getting ahead. Sit tight, bishop, I'm going faster now."

"You mustn't, you can't," said the bishop.

Bob stooped for an answer and turned on the fourth speed. The bishop felt the machine sailing underneath him. He fell back and lost all ordinary consciousness.

"It is true," said his mind deep inside him; "it is true that all things are illusion! I have sometimes suspected it. We are a mode of motion; we are affections of the ether. I believe Professor Osborne Reynolds is right. I am a kind of vortex spinning in piled grains of ether. Bob is a vortex. We are in a vortex. We are straws in ether; we are shadows. I have a real non-existent pain in my real imaginary non-existent stomach. I am not alive and I am not dead. I am brave; I am a coward; I am a bishop. This is very wonderful. I shall preach about it when I return to earth. Is that a hedge? Did I see a cow?--a strange, elongated, horned, lowing, permanent, impermanent possibility of sensation and milk in a field made of matter, which is energy, which is an illusion. I become calm; motion is relative. I almost enjoy it. I become a Hegelian. I see that being equals non-being; that pain becomes pleasure if you only have enough of it. I no longer pity those who suffer sufficiently. There is apparently too little pain in the universe. Torquemada did his best to remedy it. Oh, was that a dog? I quite enjoy myself. I wonder if he can go faster. If he can, I wish he would. We are going slow, too slow!"

And, as Geordie's dust showed up much nearer, Bob put his car again at the third speed, and the bishop gasped.

"How do you like it?" asked Bob, as they spun through Spalding.

The bishop's face was a fine glowing crimson; his bloodshot eyes glittered like opals; he was intoxicated with movement and with new lights on philosophy.

"I--I should like to go a thousand miles an hour at night," said the bishop. "I think it is wonderful, Bob. Are you Bob, and I a bishop? Where is Spilsborough? Is there a Spilsborough?"

"Steady on!" said Bob. "I say, you're excited!"

"I am," replied the bishop. "I am excited; I feel peculiar. I think I can originate a new philosophy. Why are we doing this?"

"We are trying to find out where Penelope is," said Bob.

"Penelope, Penelope," said the bishop. "Penelope is a vortex. Yes, she is a vortex. Men and women are vortices. I shall study mathematics and apply it to theology."

"Hello!" said Bob, and he stopped almost dead. For Geordie's dust had suddenly died down.

"I'll bet he has a puncture," said Bob. And the bishop sighed and stared about him, as if he were just awakened.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Blessed if I know," said Bob. "But you ought to know."

"I don't," said the bishop. And he got out and stood on the dusty road. He reeled, and the dean would have said he was intoxicated. And so he was.

"Geordie's off again," said Bob. "Come, jump in."

"I won't," said the bishop. "Certainly I won't. That machine is a kind of devil. It undermines the strongest convictions. I am afraid of it. I shall have to resign my bishopric if I ride another mile."

"Oh, rot!" said Bob. "Aren't you coming? I can't wait."

"Take the devilish thing away," cried the bishop. "Anathema maranatha and all the rest of it!"

Without another word, Bob pulled the lever and sailed off up the road, leaving a trail of petrol vapour behind him.

"Mentally and physically, I don't know where I am," said the bishop. "I don't know who I am, either. From my clothes I conclude I am a bishop, but to come to that conclusion I have to assume that I have the right to wear them. I have had a remarkable experience. Yes, I am a bishop. This is the earth and very dusty. It is hot, and I am miles from anywhere."

He looked up the road and saw a far cloud of dust.

"Under that dust is Bob," said the bishop. "As I said, Penelope is a vortex. Everything is much more remarkable than I thought, much more remarkable. I shall write to the professor to discover what he means. It is dreadful that what may be called a mere physical experience should incline me to look on some of my fellow bishops and the higher criticism with a more lenient eye. I don't see how any dogma can survive a hundred miles an hour. But Bob has not treated me altogether well. He plumps me down somewhere between Spalding and Spilsby or Boston or some other dreadful locality under the ghostly influence of my brother of Lincoln, and disappears in dust and smell. He was distinctly disrespectful. He said, 'Sit down, bishop,' in a very authoritative manner. He told me I was excited. I own I was, but I resented being told so by a boy, because he was a boy, or was it because I am a bishop? An unaccustomed bishop in a motor-car is plainly nobody compared with an experienced boy in one. I wish Penelope was a sensible person, or that I had never known her, or that she hadn't been born! I wonder what I am to do. I must walk; I may be overtaken by a cart and get a ride in one. I anticipate much talk in Spilsborough about this. I wonder what Ridley will say. Ridley is a stoic; perhaps he will say nothing. I wish I was near Ridley; I am thirsty. This road is dusty. It also appears long and interminable. I am as dry as convocation. I much resent Bob's treatment of me. I wish Bradstock was here, and I was where Bradstock is. Bradstock is in my library, in my chair, with a book in his hand and a whiskey and soda by his side. He takes things with great calmness. I wish he was here to take this with calmness."

And he walked south for three hours and got back to Spalding, and there took a train for Spilsborough.

*CHAPTER XXI.*

"I don't think I quite understand the bishop," said Bob, as he left the dignitary of the Church stranded long miles from anywhere. "He looked very queer. But I suppose they're made bishops because they are queer, unless it's on account of their legs. I can understand the gaiters, but the apron licks me. I'll ask him about it some day. But I wonder where we are, and how much longer Geordie will go on. It's luck I've had no puncture and no breakdown. I thought it was all up when I sent that dog over the hedge. He did fly. I wonder whether any bobbies have spotted my number. I don't care. Gordon owes me a lot of money by now. What's thirty-two times two thousand odd? Oh, I can't remember. I'm getting rather tired."

But he stuck to Geordie like a burr to a sheep, and between the two of them they stirred up more ancient peace and the haunts of it than any other two cars in the United Kingdom. They fairly bounded through sleepy old Boston, and a policeman, waked up from sleep by Geordie, was wide-awake enough by the time Bob came through to call on him to stop.

"I wouldn't stop for an army of policemen," said Bob, recklessly. "I don't care. I'll catch Geordie if I die for it. Gordon will pay my fines. I wonder how the bishop is. This is the Spilsby road, is it? I wonder whether Pen's at Spilsby? Will she be very cross with me? Oh, that was a hen! I _do_ think hens shouldn't be allowed in a road."

A dog stood in the middle of the way and barked. In the middle of his second bark, the front wheel caught him. He ended his bark in the ditch, and was very dreamy about the whole affair for some time afterward.

"That was a dog," said Bob. "I _do_ think dogs shouldn't be allowed in a road."

He missed a horse by a hairbreadth a mile farther on, and felt very cross. He said horses shouldn't be allowed in a road. He said the same of carts and of a carriage, of children and agricultural labourers. They were so slow. For now Geordie was going pretty fast, and Bob had to go on the fourth speed, which is highly illegal and wicked and very dangerous. He had never enjoyed himself so much before, and he was undoubtedly the happiest boy in the three kingdoms.

"Geordie doesn't know I'm after him," he said. "I'll bet he's riding along easy. That car of Pen's can go like lightning if he lets her out. He will be mad when I come up."

And suddenly he perceived down a long, white road that Geordie was going more slowly.

"This must be Spilsby," said Bob. He saw Geordie's dust go off at a right angle toward the right.

"I've done it," said the exultant boy. "We must be near Pen's now."

For to turn to the right in the neighbourhood of Spilsby means to go toward the North Sea.

Bob ran into Spilsby quite meekly on the second speed, and turned after Geordie. A mile farther on, Bob saw a house in some trees, and all of a sudden there was no more dust from Geordie's car. Bob pulled up in the middle of the road.

"By Jove, I've done it, I know," said Bob, "and now I feel a bit nervous. I wonder what Pen will say, and whether her husband is there, and what the kid's like. Well, here's for it! She can't do more than eat me."

And he drove on till he came to the house, which was an ivy-covered building like a square barrack, and would have been hideous without its creepers. There was a moat around it and big elms hid it from a distance. The gate was open, and by the front door stood Geordie and his car. Bob gave a view-halloo, and, twisting through the gate, came to a standstill alongside Pen's big yellow racer.

And Penelope herself came to the door, and saw not only Geordie, whom she recognized simply by the fact that he was in a car she knew, but an undistinguishable stranger also.

"Oh!" said Bob.

"Eh?" said Geordie.

"Who--" said Penelope.

And Bob staggered out of his machine, and fairly reeled when he stood upright. He had no notion that no one, not even Titania, could have recognized him. He forgot his goggles, and he forgot he was so dusty that one might have planted cabbages on his cheeks. He did not know that he weighed several pounds more than usual, owing to the amount of Lincolnshire that he carried on him. He had no idea that he was awful, hideous, a goggled, dirty portent. He smiled, and the dirt cracked upon him, and Penelope shrank back.

"Oh, I say, Pen, are you mad with me?" he asked.

And Penelope shrieked and ran to him, and, falling upon him, embraced him with horrible results to her clothes.

"Oh, Bob, Bob, is it you?" she cried.

"It's me, right enough," said Bob. "I say, can I have a drink? I'm dying! Am I dusty? Yes, so I am. Oh, Pen, it's come off on you! I say, I do want a drink. It's such a warm day, and Geordie would go so fast. I followed Geordie."

Geordie looked horribly disgusted, but neither Pen nor Bob paid the least attention to him.

"Followed up by a boy," groaned Geordie, "and in that thing!"

He regarded the mean fifteen-horse-power concern with great contempt. "Well, I'm blessed!"

"Oh, come in, Bob, dear Bob," said Pen.

"Are you glad to see me?"

"Oh, I've been dying to see you."

"Upon your honour?" asked Bob.

"Yes, yes," said Penelope. "I want to ask you so much, and I've got so much to say. But tell me, tell me quick. Does any one else know where I am?"

Bob shook dust out of his head.

"Not a soul, unless it's the bishop," he replied.

"What bishop?"

"The Bishop of Spilsborough," replied Bob. "I left him on the road."

"Oh!" gasped Pen, "is he following you?"

"Not much," said Bob. "He got scared and got out and wouldn't get in again, and he talked such rot I thought he was mad, for a bishop, so I left him, and suppose he's walking home again."

Pen almost shook him.

"But what was he doing with you?"

"He wanted to come part of the way in my car, so I let him, and he was awfully funky. I don't think much of bishops if they're all like him, though he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords in the cathedral."

"Fighting? with swords? Oh, what--" said Penelope.

"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn't know. I'll tell you by and by. Bradstock's at Spilsborough. Where's my drink, Pen? I say, did you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford? That was fun. He threw De Vere out of the window, and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell and Scott."

"What Mr. Bunting?"

"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but he wasn't. I had tea with him afterward. I'll tell you by and by. Do you know grandmother had fits about it all?"

Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the results of her fatal conduct were thus revealed to her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her heart almost failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible troubles.

"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked. "Oh, the bishop and Guardy and duels and fits and Mr. Bunting and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"

She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over Bob in her eagerness for more news.

"I say, Pen, be careful! That went down my neck," said Bob, "and outside it, too. I say, who've you married? Tell me. Where's the kid? May I see it? I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad somehow and rather worried. I feel better now. I don't mind what went down outside. I'll have a bath soon. Where's the kid? They _do_ talk a lot about it in town. They say, some of 'em, that you've married the Rajah of Jugpore, the little beast, and that the baby is black, or partly black. Is it? I know it isn't."

"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"

She rushed at the bell, and when the servant came she commanded the instant appearance of the baby and the nurse.

"You know they said you married Timothy Bunting," said Bob.

Penelope flushed crimson.

"It was wicked of them."

"That beast Weekes told granny you had. She said she knew it. That's how I had tea with Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he'd chucked Plant and Gordon down-stairs. They were sick. Oh, oh! is this the kid?"

Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and told the nurse she might go and have tea. When she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.

"He's--he's all I've got," she said, sobbing.

Bob started.

"I say, what do you mean? You don't mean you aren't married at all?"

"No, no," said Penelope. "I mean--oh, it's terrible! Oh, baby, I love you!"

She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very fine baby, and wept again. Bob inspected the boy with great interest.

"I say, I rather think it's like Plant," he said.

Pen gasped.

"But in this light, it's rather like Gordon."

"Oh!" said Penelope.

"And its forehead is like De Vere's a little. I say, won't you tell me who you've married?"

Penelope hugged the baby and howled.

"I can't, I can't. We've q-quarrelled," she said, "and he's furious, and I'm f-furious with him."

"Why?" asked Bob, still inspecting the baby for signs of his male parentage, "why? Oh, I say, sideways he reminds me of Williams and Rivaulx, and upside down he's a little like Carew and Goby. But why have you quarrelled, Pen?"

Pen explained with tears how it had happened.

"You see, I said he wasn't to tell," she said. "And he went to your grandmother and told!"

"So did all the rest," said Bob, "and that was where granny got very confused. I listened. I know it was a sneak thing to do, but I was thinking of your interests, and she said to the last of 'em: 'I know you've come to say you've married dear Penelope.' It was very pathetic, Pen. I never thought granny could be pathetic before. She usually makes me pathetic instead, or she used to. But was he one of 'em?"

"He was," sniffed Pen, "and he broke his solemn oath. The others were noble. I sent them telegrams to say they were noble."

"That's why they all went to Spilsborough, where you sent the telegrams from," said Bob, "and that's why Plant and Rivaulx fought with swords under the cathedral, till the bishop and the dean stopped them. I tell you the dean _was_ mad."

"Oh, dear, dear!" said Penelope. "I wish they wouldn't. Did they hurt each other?"

"Not much, I think," replied Bob. "I didn't see any blood. But when I told 'em you'd married Timothy Bunting, Rivaulx lay on the grass and tried to bite it and howled dreadfully."

"Poor marquis!" said Pen. "But why did you tell them so dreadful a story?"

Bob shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Pen, but I believed it. Weekes said she _knew_, and granny had fits. There's something about fits that makes you believe almost anything. But you haven't told me who it is. I say, with the light sideways on that baby, he reminds me of Bramber. But who is it?"

"We've p-parted," said Penelope. "He came and said he'd told, and I was very f-furious, and we had a r-row. And he was so cross and mad, because without me he couldn't prove it. For we were married in other names, and I wrote my name in another handwriting, and I said I would deny it. And he flew into a passion and into a motor-car and went away. And I've only my p-pride and b-baby left. And I'm so sorry for every one. And how did you find me?"

Bob told her how he had done it, and told her of Bradstock's advertisement, and told her about the bishop, and more about Mr. Bunting of All Saints, Oxford, who was the strongest man he had ever seen. Carteret Williams was nothing in his hands.

"And now I've told you everything, won't you tell me who it is?"

"No," said poor Penelope; "it would humiliate me to tell now, and I won't."

"But they must know here," said Bob.

"Only three," replied Penelope. "Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith and Timothy. And Timothy was so unhappy when he heard he had married me that I sent him away to Upwell, where there are more horses. But he's back now. And Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith have sworn not to tell. And I expect you not to ask them."

Bob snorted a little at this.

"Oh, all right, but I shall have to say where you are when I go back to Spilsborough."

"Oh, you won't," said Pen.

"I must," said Bob. "Bradstock is terribly worried about it now, and thinks you've treated him badly, and the bishop is very curious, and he asks questions in a way that it's difficult not to answer somehow. And besides there's granny and all the rest. I say, do you know Gordon has been speculating for me, and has made seventy thousand pounds for me?"

"You don't say so?" cried Pen.

"I think it must be Gordon," said Bob. "When the shadow's on that kid, he looks rather like Gordon, if you can think of Gordon as a baby, which is hard. But when I'm a duke, I shall rebuild Goring and pay off some of the mortgages. Whoever you've married, I'm very grateful to you, Pen, about Gordon and De Vere. De Vere bought the spotted dog I told you of. I found Goby weeping with Ethel. That made me think it wasn't him. But now you say you've quarrelled with him, I'm not sure again. I say, I'm very sleepy. May I stay to-night?"

"Of course," said Penelope. And then a brilliant idea struck her.

"Bob, you do love me, don't you?"

"What rot! of course," said Bob.

"Then stay here altogether for a time," said Pen.

"By Jove, what fun!" cried Bob. "I'll send 'em a wire, and I will. Can Geordie go somewhere else but Spilsborough and send one?"

"Certainly," said Penelope. And it was arranged that Geordie should go to Lincoln to send it from there. This is the telegram Bob sent to Lord Bradstock:

"I have found Penelope. She won't say who it is because she has quarrelled with him, and she won't let me come back yet. I will take care of her. Tell grandmother and Guthrie. She quarrelled with him because he said he was married to her. But the baby is not black."