The sun was shining level through the tree-tops when they began to
fish. In fifteen minutes the bishop called a halt, dipped a bucket of
water and washed his hands. Clark, still under the spell of this new
friendship, saw the great amethyst of the episcopal ring gleaming
softly amid the glint of fish scales, and dimly remembered the story of
the Man and the Galilean fisher folk whose catch was poor till He told
them where to cast. Presently the bishop stripped and went overboard
into the brown water with a clean schloop, where he was instantly
followed by his guest.
Here they played like schoolboys, shouting and blowing in utter
physical abandonment, while the copper colored pilot stared at them
with expressionless eyes and wondered mutely why people wanted to get
so wet.
The bishop was like an otter, swimming under water a long way to
reappear with a sharp whistle in an unexpected place. Soon the first
flush of Clark's enjoyment passed. He felt suddenly tired and turned
toward the Evangeline, where a small wooden ladder had been let down
just athwart the cabin cockpit. And in that instant he felt a sharp
and agonizing pain.
"Help!" he called. "Help!!" A deadly stiffness was stealing from foot
to knee.
The bishop heard, rolled over on his back and, treading water, saw
Clark's face. The lips were puffed out, the head bent back and he was
splashing desperately.
"Hang on to it, I'm coming," roared the big man, and, laying his right
shoulder forward; began to tear through the water. Like a tug he came,
with a bubble of foam around his head, half his face submerged, his
powerful arms and legs working like pistons. Such was the power in him
that at each stroke his great body seemed to lift and fling itself
forward, and behind him broadened a long, diamond shaped ripple that
slid whispering to the shore. The next moment sounded a voice, as from
a long way off:
"Put your arms straight out--rest your palms on my shoulders. When I
turn, trail your body and don't try to do anything. That's it." The
bishop was breathing hard, but not in any way distressed.
They moved toward the yacht and Clark felt beneath his hands the
working of big, flexible muscles, and the buoyant surge of the
practiced swimmer who glides with the minimum of effort and resistance.
In five minutes he was scarifying his skin with a rough towel and
tingled with renewing circulation.
"You saved my life that time," he said earnestly.
The bishop pulled his shirt over his head. "Well, that's my business,
isn't it? and I fancy it's about the only thing I can do for a man like
you. Let's have some breakfast. I smell fish."
Clark, in spite of his late experience, ate as he seldom ate, for there
were two things at which Indian Joe was a master--pilotage and cooking.
The visitor asked for more, silently deciding that his Japanese must
go, being no such artist as this.
"You're using royal silver," said his host presently with a grin. "I
bought this boat from the agent of a certain august personage for whom
she had grown too small, and I got everything complete. She has a
bronze propeller and copper rivets. I've got the royal burgee too, and
fly it only on special occasions."
The other man smiled and nodded. It did not somehow seem strange to
him to be using royal silver in a remote bay on Lake Huron. Something
about the bishop made it appropriate. Then they lifted anchor and the
Evangeline moved on under a climbing sun and over a laughing sea for
ten miles till she nosed into a creaking dock and made fast. Just
beyond was the settlement, from which the parson came hurrying down,
followed by others. Clark looked at him, a lean, overworked man, with
rusty clothes and joy in his face, and remembered for the first time in
his life that here was one fashioned in all ways like unto himself.
"I'm off into the country to visit for a few hours," said the bishop,
introducing him. "You can come if you like, but it's not a good road,
and I would advise you to stay where you are. Joe will take you
fishing and there is plenty to read in the bookshelf. I can recommend
Henry Drummond or Marcus Aurelius. Good-by!"
He drove off in a rattling buckboard, and the woods swallowed him. A
little crowd had gathered in the dock, glancing after the bishop and
then down at the slender deck of the Evangeline. The stranger looked
up at them, nodded and disappeared. Presently Joe stretched an awning
over the long boom of the main mast, and Clark sat in the shade
listening to the silence and surveying this isolated village. What, he
wondered, could keep people in so forgotten a community, with its
unpaved street, its straggling wooden houses, its background of
unbroken bush. There was no water power, no big timber, and, from the
look of the country, no mineral. He put the thought out of his mind
with luxurious deliberation and tried to decipher why a man like the
bishop should waste his time here when, without doubt, he could be a
shining light in a great city. After a little the reason became clear,
and, smiling to himself, he reached up for Marcus Aurelius.
They supped that night at the parsonage, where they yielded to the
stark simplicity of new surroundings. The parson with his wife and
children regarded the bishop with their eyes in which love and
reverence were clearly mingled. At the stranger they looked a little
insecurely, for the bishop had, that afternoon, told who he was. They
had heard of him already, and in this remote village his person had
been invested with mysterious powers. He was a force of which they
read, rather than a living, breathing man, so that however he might try
to talk affably and communicably, he found himself hedged about with a
spiny growth of fame that the others made but little attempt to
penetrate. His garment of authority and influence was too great. He
was too big and didn't fit.
Later came service in the bare, wooden church, and for the second time
he saw the prelate in robes of office. The sun was setting and its
level beams filled the tiny edifice with a softened glow. Overhead the
sky was like a benison, while the bishop spoke words of cheer and
strength that went straight to the hearts of his congregation. He
stood, as he always stood, in front of the chancel, a great figure in
white and scarlet, with a deep mellow voice that seemed to dissolve in
the hush of evening like a lingering caress. Clark, in his corner, sat
motionless, touched as he had seldom been touched before. He began to
see why the bishop spent his life in this wilderness.
Service done, the Evangeline moved out over a sea that was sheer, flat
silver. Indian Joe sat motionless at the wheel, the spokes pressed
lightly against his polished palm. At the engine room hatch a
voiceless Scotchman smoked a contemplative pipe, and for the rest of it
there was only the muffled thud of the propeller, the subdued stroke of
the engine and the whisper of split water at the yacht's knifelike
stem. Clark did not speak. It seemed as the yacht slipped on, that he
was exploring, a kingdom in which the population and their ways were
hitherto unknown to him; a domain that was pathetic rather than
poor--and remote from his scheme of things. He had given this phase of
life no thought till the bishop introduced him to it, and was puzzled
that both men and women could be so deprived of the salt of life and
yet be apparently content. The bishop's voice broke his reverie.
"Did you ever consider how much those with imagination owe to those who
have none?"