Part 11

I looked at the heroine hard and long, and then I unlocked a drawer and took out an old photograph of another dark-eyed girl, and put them side by side and let myself dream how it would be if that hand were sometimes on my shoulder, if those eyes smiled, so, to be at my side—if we had not quarrelled. I do not often let myself have this dream, because it makes work and play harder for a day or two.

I look forward to a month in Canada next summer, and I expect to have a guide who will turn the woods upside down to get me good fishing and hunting, as is the just reward of a successful meddler. And in the intervals of serious business I expect to listen without paying admission to the “best number of the best vaudeville ever staged”—No. 5—Zoëtique’s whistling.

THE YOUNG MAN WITH WINGS

THE YOUNG MAN WITH WINGS

What if some morning when the stars were paling, And the dawn whitened, and the East was clear, Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence Of a benignant spirit standing near:

And I should tell him, as he stood beside me, “This is our earth—most friendly earth and fair; Daily its sea and shore, through sun and shadow, Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air;

“There is blest living here—loving and serving, And quest of truth, and serene friendships dear; But stay not, Spirit! Earth has one destroyer,—His name is Death—flee, lest he find thee here.”

And what if then, while the still morning brightened, And freshened in the elm the Summer’s breath, Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel, And take my hand, and say: “My name is Death.”

Sill’s verses occurred to the bishop as he lay awake in the night. A thing had startled him during the day, and sleep had not come promptly as ordinarily. He listened, aware of each shading of sound, to the pleasant, dim noises of the midnight world. A thin wind rustled the trees outside his windows, it might be as if a crowd of light-footed ladies in silk petticoats passed unendingly by; far off in the road hoof-beats approached rapidly and rapidly died away; a dog—little Café, for he knew his voice—sent a shower of light, futile barks after the distant horse; a shutter somewhere banged aimlessly at intervals. Each accustomed impression, unnoted on common nights, reached his brain as a revelation, because of that which Everingham, the village doctor, had said in the afternoon.

So he lay awake and thought about the new prospect. It excited him as the prospect of a trip to Europe might excite him. However, Everingham was not certain; he had asked for a consultation, and the bishop had telegraphed Jim Fletcher, as he had called him since the two had roomed together at college fifty years back, to come down when it was possible. And Jim—Doctor James Austin Fletcher, as he was known over all America—Jim, to the bishop, had answered that he would be in Lancaster to-morrow at eleven. Jim would settle it. Meantime, what was the use of staying awake? The fact seemed to verge on emotionalism. He had believed himself free of that. He had believed himself free, moreover, of a thought which had once poisoned his days—free, but here it was following him, and in his veins throbbed the old uneasiness, familiar yet for all the years between. “It’s not my affair now,” he spoke aloud, as if reasoning, and then words came to him which he knew well, and he said them and peace came with them. He turned toward the square of the window where the opal night poured in and lay on his forehead and filtered to his nerves; with that the rhythm of Sill’s verses caught and rocked him as his mother would have rocked him seventy years before, and he went quietly to sleep.

For an hour he slept dreamlessly, and then, at about one o’clock of the morning it might have been, through the hushed chambers of his brain there moved a presence from beyond them. The bishop put out his long, strong fingers as if in greeting, and a smile came on the sleeping face—the dream was pleasant. Some one, whom he was glad to see, stood by him, by the bed in the big, airy room, and smiled down at him. And it surprised the bishop only a very little that his visitor, the tall young man, had wings. He could plainly see the face, a face which he knew. The wings were a touch uncommon, but why not? The figure was more beautiful because of them—it was good to see them. Why did he know the face? And with that the young man spoke three words:

“Go to Lancaster.” And the bishop woke up.

He smiled broadly at the convincingness of dreams in general, at the distinctness with which the imagined voice still sounded in his brain: “Go to Lancaster.”

It was exactly as if some one had wakened him with the command. But the face was gone, and he could not recall it. Puzzled, smiling, he fell asleep. It might have been half an hour later that the dream came again. Again the tall figure, bringing, it seemed, an atmosphere of unlimited easy power, stood by him; and the bishop, looking up unafraid, saw a light on the face as if to emphasize—to impress it on his memory. And again the clear voice spoke the same three words:

“Go to Lancaster.”

And the bishop woke up. Through him there appeared to be an infusion of the strength which had been a vivid impression from the dream. He felt suddenly young, filled with energy. It was a long time since he had felt like this—Everingham said the malady had most likely been gripping him for years. Was it possible that he was shaking it off? That he was going to get well, in spite of Everingham’s croaking? Well, Jim would settle that to-day. A man could trust Jim. In the meantime it was a great thing to have this glorious spasm of health, whatever it might mean. It cleared the brain—and the bishop fell to thinking. As he opened the door of his mind there met him the thought which he had said was not now his affair. Back of it was a procession of very old memories. He had not for years let himself review these in detail, yet the details were sharp. With his fresh sense of buoyancy he went back now to events which had shaped his career.

The foundations of lives are mostly alike, and mostly of elemental stuffs. On these rise superstructures of infinite architecture: a hovel of odds and ends here, a grim walled castle there, or a stately palace, or buildings filled with machinery, or sunshiny homes—there is never an end to the sorts. But under all the sorts lie masses of primeval rock, called by a few names such as Ambition and Love and Hate and Remorse and Honor and others. The bishop’s business was with foundations, and he uncovered now in the night those under the dwelling he had made for himself. He found there one jagged rock, which cut him as he passed over it; its name was Remorse. In the crystal of his life was one cloud which darkened the light. The bishop thought, as he had thought many times before, of a man who had “found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully and with tears.” He clinched his strong fist.

“If I might set that one thing right—if I might find him and tell him, and make amends with all that I have, then I could go,” he spoke aloud.

With that he felt a desire to turn over his memories and put them in decent order, and he bent his mind to consider the old, long story. Wide-awake, clear-headed, with his new strength pulsing in him, he went over it all, and perhaps an hour passed, and at the end his mind rested, relieved. He put away the unrest; he thought happily of every-day things, of this big, pleasant place of his which he loved, the sunshiny garden, the shady driveway, where he mounted his horse of a morning. And the horse, Billy, and the joyful big dogs, and the little dog, Café, who was always so ridiculously glad when he came back from his ride—he had a great affection for them all. The gentleness of such thoughts about him, again he fell asleep.

And as soon as he slept it seemed the young man with wings stood again by the bedside, a shaft of strong light on the face; and again he spoke, imperatively:

“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.

“Well—well, sir,” Higgins stammered through the yawn, and the bishop laughed.

“Me! I’m waitin’ fo’ Squire Fassett. County Co’t to-day; las’ month I slep’ over, an’ the Squire, he come in early with his cattle, and had the devil’s own—excuse me, sir—had a hell of a time—excuse me, sir—I’m sleepy—had a right bad job wakin’ me. He talked some about shootin’, so I thought I’d sleep handy over this side.”

“Good,” the bishop said thoughtfully. “You’ll ferry me over? I can get to Lancaster?”

“Get to Lancaster?” the man repeated. “Nothin’ simpler, bishop; I reckon,” he added, apparently to Billy, “there ain’t much you want of these parts you _can’t_ get.”

There was a three-mile stretch on the Lancaster side; the bishop took it slowly; it was six when he turned into the main street, where the early birds stared as Billy’s tread echoed from the cobbles. Embarrassment seized the bishop. This was an absurd performance. As soon as Billy and he had breakfast he would ride back to the Thickets. He drew up at a hotel and gave Billy over to a groom, and strolled to the echoing dining-room, killing time over details. He had to wait for breakfast, and when it was over he found that he had managed the day up to eight o’clock, and with that the thought occurred to him that he would wait and meet Doctor Fletcher at eleven. The ride had not tired him; in fact he felt like a walk on top of it, a good way to get rid of some of the time on his hands. There was a park on the other side of the city, and he had not seen it for months.

The landlord of the Harrington House stood on the steps and watched. “There goes the right sort of parson,” he observed to the clerk. “Look at him beat it up the street. He ain’t too pious to be a human, and that’s what rakes in the souls. And he’s awfully good comp’ny. Heaven for climate, but hell for comp’ny, folks say; but the bishop’s got hell queered when he starts business up on high.” In many forms good-will followed the short figure and the fine gray head; eyes brightened to see how well he looked, how young his gait.

It was quiet in the park. It lay high, and through a vista cut in juicy green he looked across the valley, where his home lay, the big place with fields and thickets and trees, and the large, sunshiny garden. “I’m sorry it all has to go to strangers,” he said aloud; then his mouth twisted into a queer, lovable, sidewise smile that was his, and he lifted himself from the bench to start back to town. With that came a clatter of muffled hoofs down the soft bridle-path, and he turned with a rider’s interest in riders. A young man was galloping fast toward him through the shifting light and shadow, and the bishop, still smiling, suddenly started, horror-struck. Out from a by-path in front of the rider ran a little boy, late to school, hurrying across the park with his books and slate, oblivious of everything else. The bishop shouted, and the rider saw in time and pulled in, and the child was safe. But it had been a close shave. The horseman went on, and the bishop fell to thinking. It was odd that this thing should have happened twice in two months—almost identically this thing. Early in May he had landed from England at Quebec, and had spent three days in Montreal, and one morning he had driven up the mountain, Mount Royal, the park for which nature has done more, perhaps, than for any other in the world. It was bright weather, and as the carriage climbed the hanging road he had met many people on horseback. Around a turn, where the green mist of leaves arched over a level stretch, a horse and rider cantered toward him through the speckled sunlight—a splendid brown horse carrying a big young man, bare-headed, fair-haired. As pleasant a sight, the bishop thought, as one might see on earth. Then without warning there was a sound which made his pulse stop. A woman at the roadside screamed as a creature screams in a last agony. And the bishop followed her wild eyes. In the middle of the sunny road, where the shadows twisted bewilderingly, a little lad of three or four bent over a ball which rolled from him, and the flying hoofs were almost on him. The horse came galloping—a noble picture—the little white figure, stooping, fearless of death, in the sun-splashed road, death bearing down gloriously.

“Ah!” It seemed as if the round world had gasped that. At the last second the young man had seen, and with a turn of the hand, with all his strength, with the skill of a finished horseman, had thrown his mount. Back they rolled together in a dangerous mass, the immense hoofs and the bright head flashing. And the child scrambled away, and his mother sobbed and did not even look as he ran toward her, for before her eyes the man who had given him back to her lay where the body of the horse must crush him the next second. And as the horse rolled the great hoofs floundered in air, and somehow righted, and within six inches of the helpless head rolled back. In two minutes more they were all grouped in the road, a joyful and excited company—the woman sobbing with happiness now; the baby shrieking for sympathy; the driver swearing gleefully, regardless of the bishop, and the young man who had just grazed death up and punching anxiously here and there at his trembling animal. The bishop held the beast’s head, and the boy, the cause of the sensation, played calmly with his ball. In two minutes more the woman and children had gone on, but the bishop was still helping the young man look things over.

“Jove, that’s luck—that’s luck I wouldn’t have dared hope for,” the boy brought out. He was an attractive lad, well bred and radiantly good-looking, an Englishman, yet with a breeziness not English, and a peculiarity in his speech. It might be Canadian, the bishop thought as he noticed—it is hard for Americans to judge. “That’s ripping. Thank you, bishop. Not a strap or buckle wrong, and the beggar not scratched. I couldn’t do it again, don’t you know.” He patted the frightened horse.

“How do you know I’m a bishop?”

The boy laughed, pleased. “You are, aren’t you, sir? That was easy.” He put his hand on his own collar and nodded at the bishop’s. “A clergyman, of course—but I’d have known it anyhow—there’s something—and—” he hesitated, and then looked the older man in the eyes frankly, deferentially. “It’s plain to see, sir, if you will excuse me, that you’re a personage. I’m not taking liberties, am I?”

“Not a bit. I like it. I’d walk a mile for a compliment.” Then he laid his hand on the broad shoulder above him, for the lad towered. “My boy, I must tell you something also. That was a fine thing you did.”

The blue eyes opened wider. “Oh, you mean throwing the horse? It’s a dangerous trick, of course, but I had to. I didn’t want to, but the youngster was close. You’re a horseman—there wasn’t any other way, was there, bishop?”

“No,” the bishop said slowly. “There wasn’t any other way,” and let it go at that.

“I’m glad he’s not hurt,” the boy explained, “because he’s not mine. He belongs to a friend I’m staying with. That is”—he laughed—“I’m at his house. He and his people went off yesterday, and I was due to start for the States last night. But I stayed over for a ride. You see I was brought up on a horse, on the other side of the world, that was. And I’ve not had the chance lately, and I’ve missed it. Henderson would mind most awfully if I’d hurt Thunderbolt, and so should I. I’m keeping you, bishop.” He held out his hand. “Thanks, awfully, for helping me,” and the stiff formula held a heartiness which went to the bishop’s heart. He was attracted beyond explanation by this boy. He tried to think of a reason to lengthen the incident.

“You’re sure you’re not shaken up? I could drive you home with pleasure.”

But the young fellow laughed. “I’m perfectly fit; thanks ever so much. I hope we’ll meet again, bishop.”

They clasped hands as if both were sorry to part. “If I can ever do anything for you, you’ll try to let me know, won’t you?”

“I will, bishop,” the boy said heartily. And neither remembered that they did not know each other’s names, for it seemed an old friendship. And the young fellow vaulted into the saddle and was gone.

But in the mind of the bishop all that day, and for days after, there lingered a recollection of the big young figure, and the honest blue glance, and of the simplicity with which he had offered his life for a strange child’s. Seldom had the bishop met any one who had so pleased him—and he did not know his name.

“I should like to own a boy like that,” the bishop thought then, with a touch of the loneliness which sometimes caught him.

He had said that over to himself more than once in the two months since the incident, and now, in the park of Lancaster, as the horseman disappeared into the June greenness, and the startled little boy hurried off to school, he thought of his garden and his house, and the things dear to him, which must go to strangers, and the bright face of the rider on Mount Royal came with a throb of pain, and he felt his isolation and said it again: “I should like to own a boy like that.” Then he trudged cheerfully back toward town, putting away, as was his habit, any personal sadness. And when he got into the city, it was only ten o’clock—an hour yet before Doctor Fletcher’s train. He strolled down Brandon Street, past the court-house. The great doors were wide open, and through them rang a dictatorial voice which he knew well, the voice of Judge Lovett. The bishop halted; the winning, odd smile by which people who loved him remembered him lighted his face—a smile which drew his strong mouth sidewise in a characteristic line, keen, humorous, kindly. He liked Judge Lovett. He turned into the court-house, and dropped in the back row by the side of a man who made way for him deferentially.

“What’s the case?” the bishop whispered.

“A murder case—young fellow’s being tried for murder done twenty miles from here, about two months ago—trying to prove an alibi, but it looks right black. That’s him, the big, light-haired chap.” And the bishop looked, and saw the rider of Mount Royal.

Judge Lovett’s voice went on, emotionless, incisive. “You say that you were in Montreal on the sixth of last May; can you prove it? Is there any one who saw you and talked to you there who would remember you?”

The bishop, standing up, staring, his pulse beating in jumps, listened to the answer.

“There is one man whom I talked to when I was riding on the mountain,” the frank tones trailed off rather hopelessly, “but I don’t know his name or where he lives.”

At the back of the court-room there was a stir. A sudden voice lifted across the place, startling judge and jury and the crowded benches of listeners. “I am the man,” the bishop spoke loudly and walked forward down the aisle to the rail.

There was a dramatic silence. The court-room seemed to catch its breath as one man. The judge’s dominant speech broke the hush.

“Bishop,” he asked, “did you see this young man in Montreal on the sixth of May?”

“Yes.”

“Please take the stand,” said the judge.

The bishop testified. People hardly breathed for fear of missing one of the direct words. It was clear in five minutes, and before the district-attorney finished his examination of twenty minutes or so there was no question, so that when the jury went out the judge directed them to bring in a verdict of acquittal. The bishop, stepping down from the stand, came to the prisoner. He put out his hand, his face alight, and the boy caught it in both his, and his mouth worked.

“Bishop, a man can’t say ‘Thank you’—there aren’t any words—” He stopped.

“My lad,” the little bishop said soothingly to the towering young giant, and patted the huge fists with his free fingers as if he spoke to a child—“my lad, of course there aren’t any words—there never are if you need them. _I’d_ like to lay my hands on one or two to tell you how glad I am. And so glad to see you besides; I’ve thought about you. How did you come here?”

“It’s a long story—I’ll tell you. But, bishop, you—did you drop from heaven? I wanted you so—it’s a miracle.” And people stood about laughing and crying and listening openly, but the two did not notice.