IN WHICH THE BISHOP OF BLANFORD RECEIVES A BLACK EYE.
"The Bishop of Blanford!" announced the page, as he threw open the door
of Sir Joseph Westmoreland's private consulting-room.
Sir Joseph came forward to meet his distinguished patient, and said a
few tactful words about having long known his Lordship by reputation.
The Bishop smiled amiably, and surveyed the great London physician
through his glasses. The two men were of thoroughly opposite types: Sir
Joseph tall, thin, wiry, his high forehead and piercing blue eye
proclaiming a powerful mind well trained for the purposes of science;
the Bishop short and broad of stature, with an amiable, rounded, ruddy
face, and the low forehead which is typical of a complacent dogmatism.
An ecclesiastic had come to humbug a man of science. Could he do it? Not
really, he told himself; but then Sir Joseph was so courteous.
"I ventured to consult you," said his Lordship, in reply to the
physician's questions, "because I feel the need of rest, absolute rest.
The duties of my diocese are so onerous--and--er--in short--you
understand."
"Quite so, quite so," said Sir Joseph, who understood that there was
nothing whatever the matter with his patient.
"To be entirely alone," continued the Bishop, "for a space of time,
without any distractions--not even letters."
"Most certainly not letters, your Lordship."
"How wonderful you men of science are!" murmured the ecclesiastic. "You
understand me exactly. Now if I could have six weeks--or even a month."
"A month, I should say," replied Sir Joseph. "After that you might begin
to receive your correspondence."
"Yes, a month would do--that is--er--where would you advise me to go?"
"What climate generally suits you best?"
"I--er--was thinking of Scotland."
"In May?" queried the physician.
"A friend would lend me his country place--and I--er--should be so
entirely alone."
"Quite so. Nothing could be better," replied his adviser, who, like all
men who have risen in their profession, had attained an infinite
knowledge of human nature.
"And you will be so kind as to write me a note, stating your
opinion--about the rest--and--er--immunity from letters--and all that,"
said the Bishop, depositing with studied thoughtlessness a double fee on
the table, "for the benefit of my--my family. She is--they are--I
mean--that is, she might not realise the importance of absolute rest,
and"--as a brilliant thought occurred to him--"and you'll give me a
prescription."
"Certainly," said Sir Joseph. "I'll do both now."
"Thanks," murmured the Bishop, and, receiving the precious documents,
he took his leave.
The great physician's letter he put carefully in an inside pocket; the
prescription he never remembered to get filled.
"A month," he said to himself; "that ought to be time enough." And he
hailed a cab, and driving promptly to the nearest American steamship
office, he engaged a passage forthwith.
"I wonder what Sir Joseph thought about it," he meditated, as he paid
for his ticket. In this respect, however, he did his adviser an
injustice. Sir Joseph never thought about it at all. It was not part of
his profession.
* * * * *
Most people would have united in saying that the Bishop of Blanford
was an exceedingly fortunate man. No one was possessed of an estate
boasting fairer lawns or more noble beeches, and the palace was a
singularly successful combination of ecclesiastical antiquity and
nineteenth-century comfort. The cathedral was a gem, and its boy choir
the despair of three neighbouring sees, while, owing to a certain
amount of worldly wisdom on the part of former investors of the
revenues, the bishopric was among the most handsomely endowed in
England. Yet his Lordship was not happy. All his life long there had
been a blot upon his enjoyment, and that blot was his sister, Miss
Matilda Banborough.
Miss Matilda was blatantly good, an intolerant virtue that accounted for
multitudes of sins in other people. Her one ambition was to bring up the
Bishop in the way she thought he should go, and hitherto she had been
wonderfully successful. All through his married life she had resided at
the palace and been the ruling power, and when his wife had died twenty
years before, snuffed out by the cold austerity of the Bishop's sister
and the ecclesiastical monotony of Blanford, Miss Matilda had assumed
the reins of power, and had never laid them down.
The Bishop's wife had been a weak, amiable woman, and her last conscious
request was to be buried in the sunlight, but her sister-in-law
remarked that "her mind must have been wandering, for though Sarah was
vacillating, she was never sacrilegious." So they buried her in the
shadiest corner of the cloisters, and put up a memorial brass setting
forth all the virtues for which she was not particularly noted, and
entirely omitting to mention her saving grace of patience under great
provocation.
Since that time the Bishop's son, Cecil, had been a bone of contention
at Blanford. His aunt had attempted to apply the same rigorous treatment
to him that had been meted out to his father; but the lad, whose spirit
had not been broken, refused to submit. At first, in his boyhood days,
his feeling was chiefly one of awe of Miss Matilda, who always seemed to
be interfering with his pleasure, and who made the Sabbath anything but
a day of peace for the restless child. Then came long terms at school,
with vacations to which he never looked forward, and then four years at
the university, when the periods spent at Blanford became more dreaded.
Cecil tried bringing home friends, but there were too many restrictions.
So, after graduation, he drifted off to London, where his aunt
prophesied speedy damnation for him, and never quite forgave him because
he did not achieve it. During these years his visits to the palace
became fewer and fewer. Then he wrote his novel, which proved the
breaking-point, for Miss Matilda forced his good-natured, easy-going
father to protest against its publication in England, and the young man,
in impatient scorn, had shaken the dust of his native country from his
feet and departed to the United States, bearing his manuscript with him.
That was a year ago, and Cecil had never written once. His publishers
would not give his address, and if he received the letters sent through
their agency, he never answered them. His father pined for him. His aunt
waxed spiteful, and so firm was her domination over the Bishop that he
never dared tell her of his secretly formed plan of going to America to
find his son. Hence his visit to the great London physician.
The little plot worked out better than he could have hoped. Sir Joseph's
letter proved convincing, for Miss Matilda had a holy awe of constituted
authority, and would no more have thought of disobeying its injunctions
than she would of saying her prayers backwards. His Lordship accordingly
went to London, and disappeared for a month--ostensibly to Scotland, in
reality to America; and no one on the Allan liner suspected for a moment
that the little man in civilian's clothes, whose name appeared on the
passenger-list as Mr. Banborough, was the Bishop of Blanford.
His thirty days of grace allowed him but two weeks in the States, and
here fortune seemed to have deserted him, for, on his arrival, he
learned that his son had gone South. A wild-goose chase to Washington
consumed much valuable time, and, with only forty-eight hours to spare,
he arrived at Cecil's quarters in New York on the day when that young
gentleman was madly driving a Black Maria out of the city.
Discouraged and disheartened at his lack of success, the Bishop took a
train for Montreal, and found himself, about ten o'clock on that
evening, owing to faulty orders and a misplaced switch, stranded at a
little station just on the dividing line between Canada and the United
States.
"And when can I proceed on my journey to Montreal?" he queried of the
station-master.
"Sure I don't know," responded that individual briefly. "We're bound to
get things cleared for the White Mountain Express if possible."
"And when is it due?" asked his Lordship.
"Eleven forty-five A.M., if she's on time."
"I think," said the Bishop, "that I'll remain for the night, and go on
at a more seasonable hour to-morrow. Is there any one here who can put
me up?"
The station-master scratched his head in perplexity, glancing off to the
horizon where glimmered a few lights from scattered farmhouses.
"I dunno what to say," he replied. "I reckon Deacon Perkins would have
put you up," pointing to the nearest light, some mile and a half
distant, which at that moment disappeared, "but," added the official,
"it looks as if he'd gone to bed. Folks don't stay up late round here.
There ain't much to do."
"But," protested his Lordship, "there's a story over this office. Surely
you can arrange something for me."
"Well, you see it's this way," said the man. "There's two police
officers and a journalist has reserved it for to-night, 'cause they's on
the lookout for a batch of prisoners 'scaping to Canada. But if so be's
you wouldn't mind sleeping in the refreshment-room, I could let you have
a mattress, and make you up a tidy bed under the bar."
The Bishop reflected that, though such quarters were hardly in keeping
with the dignity of an episcopal prince, they were better than nothing,
and as he was travelling incognito it did not much matter. So he
cheerfully accepted, and going out on the platform took a seat on the
narrow wooden bench that ran along the front of the station, and lighted
a cigar to while away the time till the preparations for his retirement
were completed.
It was pitch-dark outside, and the presence of three glimmering points
of light were the only indication of any other occupants of the bench.
But he rightly conjectured that the smokers were the policemen and the
journalist of whom he had heard, and, having nothing better to do, he
entered into conversation with them.
"Oh, yes," said Marchmont, for it was none other, "we've got a big job
on hand to-night, sir, if we pull it off."
"Is it uncertain, then?" asked the Bishop.
"Well, of course we don't know which way they're coming. There was a
sensational escape of a lot of Spanish spies from New York this noon.
When I left we only knew they'd gone North. Since then they've been
heard of near the Hudson River. Of course it's practically certain
they'll make for Montreal, as it's the nearest point at which they have
a consul, and my knowledge of human nature leads me to think they'll
take the most indirect route; so I came on here by the first train, and
if we can catch them when the Express comes through to-night, it'll be a
great scoop, and certain promotion for me."
"Who compose the party?" asked his Lordship.
"The whole thing seems to be rather mysterious," said the journalist.
"There's a woman conspirator in it, and one or two men, but the identity
of the leader, the man who planned the rescue and had the unparalleled
audacity to represent himself as one of our reporters, is quite unknown
to the police."
"But you?" said the Bishop.
"Oh, I," replied Marchmont, "of course I could hazard a guess as to his
identity." And putting his hand before his mouth, so that his two
companions should not hear his words, he added, with a tone of triumph
in his voice: "There's not the remotest doubt in my mind that the young
man who ran off with the Black Maria was none other than the Secretary
of the Spanish Legation."
"Ah," said his Lordship, who was getting bored, "very interesting, I'm
sure. I think I'll turn in now. Good-night." And a few minutes later he
was safely ensconced under the bar and in the land of dreams, where Miss
Matilda and a prison-van figured conspicuously.
After an interval of time, the Bishop was sleepily conscious of the
arrival of a train, accompanied by a certain amount of excitement, but
it was not till several hours later, when dawn was just beginning to
break, that he was rudely awakened by some one attempting to appropriate
his resting-place. At the same moment he became conscious that a
considerable uproar was going on in the station, and a voice from above,
which he recognised as the journalist's, called out:
"Say! One of that gang's in the bar! I saw him come up to the door as I
was lying in bed!"
Before the Bishop, however, became sufficiently wide awake to assimilate
thoroughly these astonishing facts, the intruder, who was grotesquely
armed with a can of hot coffee and a loaf of bread, deposited his
burdens, and falling upon the recumbent ecclesiastic, proceeded to sit
upon his head, forcing his face into the pillow, and rendering it
impossible for him to utter a single sound. The half light and the
suddenness of the attack had not permitted his Lordship to see the
features of his aggressor. He had, however, no intention of submitting
tamely to such an unpardonable outrage; and when the station-master and
the two policemen, unaware of the proximity of the object of their
pursuit, had rushed through the room and out at the back door, and the
stranger, releasing the Bishop, was preparing to fly also, his Lordship,
forgetful of the professions of peace which his calling assumed, smote
the intruder lustily in the ribs. He received in return a smashing blow
in the eye which made him see a multitude of stars, and before he could
recover himself the stranger had seized the coffee and the loaf and
dashed through to the front of the station.
The Bishop staggered to his feet, groping blindly about, while he heard
the voice of the journalist, who was leaning over the banisters in night
attire, calling vociferously to his companions that the man was escaping
by the front.
"Did he hurt you?" he asked of the Bishop.
"Yes," replied his Lordship, still blinded by the force of the blow.
"But he got as good as he gave. I didn't have four years of athletics at
the 'varsity for nothing."
"Oh, they're sure to catch him," said the journalist
"I hope so," cried the Bishop, "for he richly deserves it."
It is probable, however, that his Lordship would have modified his
desire for vengeance had he known that his aggressor was his own son.