THE BISHOP’S SON.

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 89

THE BISHOP’S SON.

By Gtjv Thorne, author of “When It Was Dark,” etc.

[All Rights Reserved.]

The people on the arrival platform at Fenrainsiter Station noticed, a little stir round the door of a first-class carriage, as the London train stopped. The stationmaster himself stood there, bowing; and there were two porters with him. Out of another carriage came a youngish, cleanshaven clergyman, and he also joined the group. . The passengers turned curiously, ana there was a sudden and quite perceptible hush among them. A tall, thin old gentleman with heavy white eyebrows and an almost fiercely aqu’iine face, got out of the carriage. He wore the gaiters and black silk apron of a bishop. “That’s Joine, Bishop Joine,’’ whispered a traveller to his wife. “Fine-look-ing old chap, isn’t beT They say he’ll be Archbishop when Wait goes ; I hear he’s very shaky!” “What a fine type!” said the lady, “the sort of bishop one sees in old pictures, don’t you know. Thomas a’Becket, or Laud.”

At that moment a man in a heavy overcoat, wearing a long red beard, came up to the Bishop and shook hands with him. "This is interesting," said the traveller. "'Do ybu know who that is, dear? That's Sir John Blantyre ; the great doctor. He'a the King's physician." "I suppose--someone belonging to en© of the couiity : Minilies is "ill." "Probably. '"Of course, only very wealthy people can send for Sir John. But I see in the paper that Lord Calross is vary ill; He lives somewhere near here. I expect the doctor's going to him." The/guard of the train passed along the carriage, requesting the travellers to take their seats.

The Bishop and the doctor left the station together. "Yes"," the doctor said in a strong Scots accent. "I have vetra little doubt that Lord Calross 'll be gone before the Christmas bells stop ringing. It's no\ uiucli that I "can do for him now. The poor fellow, knows it, too, and I jthiiw ne'Jl not be sorry. I've observed that his lordship took little interest in life since Lady Calross died. But it will be a'sad loss to the county, I understand.' Well, s 1ciay, to ye, Bishop." The great man waved his hand and entered a waiting carriage. The Bishop's brougham, with its two great black horses and the dark red mitre on the door panels, was there also. A footman helped his Lordship in, the chaplain followed, and the carriage rolled swiftly away towards the Palace, which was close to the cathedral.

The Bishop opened his paper and began to read. Mr Crier, the chaplain, sat upon the front seat of the carriage, looked out at the gay shops decorated for Christmas, and marked .with pleasure the nappy throngs jof country folk in the streets of the ancient city. The chaplain, a youngish man, was glad to be 'back again in Feniminster. He had been with the Bishop of Windsor, where his Lordship had been honoured with an invitation to "diiie and sleep." Though he was accustomed to a certain pomp and ceremony in daily life—for Bishop Joine never forgot that he was a Prince .of the Chuix;h- r -Mr,,.Griier .had found himself oppressed by the; stately etiquette of the Court, oppressed and ill at ease. That air was too rarefied ' iwc him. to breath© in comfort, i H.'« was a simple and kindly nature;- pleased and in tune with quiet, domestic, familiar things—he was glad to be home once .more. . . The Bishop put down his paper impatiently. His strong, lined old face was restless..^ "Did you hear what the doctor. said ■?"• he-asked, in that intense and vibrating' voice which was so well known in the House of Lords, in the pulpits, "and on the platforms of England. "I caught something of, it," • answered the chaplain. "Lord Calross is dvine isn't he?" - & '

"Sir John only gives ' him.. a • day «sr two," answered the uishop. He drummed restlessly with his finger* upon the seat of the carriage—long, restless fingers, on one of which the episcopal ring gleamed. "Lord-Calross's death will throw a gloom over the city this Christmas/' he resumed, after a moment or two. . "And it will place me—will place a.'J of us—in a somewhat difficult position.'' "His Lordship has been a gw»at benefactor to the city,"..the chaplain ventured *'l don't deny it," answered' t'ha Bishop' But throughout his life here Calrass has persistently stood aloof from'all religious influences. He has identified himself neither with the Church, nor the Nonconformist party. He has built mechanics' institutes and .free libraries, .and he has never, that I know of, given a penny •towards any religious object whatever-, The nearest he has ever got to godlinest*. de cleanliness! - He endowed the fre«. swimming baths. His great wealth aoid power have never been used for any Christian purposes; he has never attended a place of worship of any kind l ." "But he has never taken up any antireligious attitude," said Mr Grier. The Bishop was silent. .--. The antagonism between Beshoj> Joine and Lord OaJross was a o\ long standing and public comment. Tjfe people of Fenminslter were proud of their aishop; few other cities could boast a prelate so distinguished. A famous scholar, a man of great political influence', a friend of the greaxest personages, he stood clear, detached, like a column in their midst. But personally he was remote' frorii them. Devout and diligent as he was, no one h&xi

ever called him ,a lovable man, and there were people whet spoke of ■ham a<3 wishful, worldly, and proud. But Lord Galross, the great manufac-i-«frer, who had recently been ennobled was loved by everyone. He was a father to the oi.ty, had given it a royal largesse of his ha<nd and heart, and won all hearts by opemong his own to them. His unorthodoxy was bewailed in many quarters, but most people were agreed that the bar between the Bishop's Palace and Oalrcss Hall was a painful thing and a discredit to Ftenminstea*.

The carriage rolled up to the Palace. The Baehop entered', took a cup of coffee ana a biscuit, and then, muffled in a heavy fur coat, walked across the close to the cathedral. The great bell in St. Peter's tower was tolling for evensong. It was a grim, lowering evening. Tomorrow TSTOwid be Christmas Eve, and there were many indications in the sky that what folk call "seasonable weather" was imminent. There was no wind, bub the clouds were bag with enow, and it was very cold.

The stately service began. The Bishop sat on his great throne in the choir, and heard the almost perfect music of the singers; then he listened to the trembling, cultured voice of the old Dean asi he read the lesson.

The candles in their glass shades threw a mellow light upon the rich, fantastic carving of the stalls, the crimeon hoed of a canon who was a doctor of divinity, the white surplices of the choir. When a boy's voice shivered up towards the clerestory, in the anthem, ckar and pure as one thinks the voices of singers in. heavea must be, the Bishop sighed. Once he shook a little as at eomriia inward emotion. .All the clergy noticed Dr Joine was pall:d and worn. The lines in the proud old face were deeply cut. It ws© thought that the ceremonial. visit to Windsor had been too much for hiim.

When the service was over, and the last echoing footsteps of the_coniT€'gaitiba were hushed in the gloom of the nave, the Bishop left the cathedral by the little door in the chapter-house, which he generality used. He was walking towards the Palace gates when the precentor, a fu?sy and obvious little man-, but with a voice of pure gold, hurried up to him. "My lord," he said breathlessly, and with a happy, eager simile, "I have to ask for your congratulations" The Biishon bowed and looked . gravely down at thie little man, waiting to hea* more.

"It's my son!" eaid the precentor. The Bishop started'. "The lad has got another wonderful suoceeo ! Really," he chuckled, "really, his mother and • I can't imagine .where .he gets" all his talent from. Last July, my Lord, Arthur got a first in 'great®,' and carried off the Graven, and ■now we hear from London thai he has baen appointed assistant private secretary to Mr Bolton, the P<rime Minister! No* tiling can stop the boy now I" The Bishop's face was calm, rigid almost, and in curious contrast to the homely, joyous countenance of the other clergyman. But in his eyes there was a pained and tortured look. ■ "Well, Mr Precentor," he said at length, with a slight effort that the other did not notice, ' 'your news is indeed isjratifying. .Your boy will go far. Already he enjoys a most signal success. God is rewarding you for your love and care of him. Good-night, goodnight." "The Bishop was most sympathetic and •kindly," the precentor said afterwards to his wife. "Indeed, there were tears in his eyes as he said good-night. He quite broke through his usual reserve of manner. There must be a warm heart beating ia him someNvhere." Tlie snow began to fall thickly as night fell over the cathedral, the palace, and the close. At lb o'clock.the chaplain went to bed, and a few minutes afterwards th« Bishop told his valet to retire also. "I have some letters to write, Pitting," he said, "and I shall be working .It te in the library."

The Palace had been an old priory $« the days before the Reformation, and sfchi retained much of its . ancient character. The library was a large room hung witn pictures, the nmllioned windows covered with heavy purple curtains. A great fire of cedar logs and coal glowed in tlie open hearth.- A small writing-table covered with, papers stood by the Bishop *j chair •upon the hearthrug, and a gMen-*&ae*« •writing lamp threw a comfortable circle ot light on this oasis in the vast, s;Aen* place. Now and then the rising wind drove ■the snow against the windows with a soft thud, there was a stir and crackle among the ;lors on the fire, and every half-hour the cathedral chimes penetrated the library with a wild, muffled sweetness. The Bishop had put on a dressing-gown of camel's hair, confined round the waist with a ooTd. In this garment, with its suggestion of a monkish habit, he might have been a veritable prior of that old foundation—one of those dim, ghostly figures of the past which were said still to glide through the empty rooms and the silent corridors.

Alone there,, with no human eye to see him, the Bishop was strangely altered. His pride of bearing was gone, the tall figure seemed sunk in upon itself. He seemed a very old, tired man, lonely, weary, and forlorn. The words of the- precentor had touched him very deeply. They had-roused in him the bitterest memory of his long and wonderfully successful life, recalled to him a broken hope and a baffled ambition which always lay, lava hot, deep down in his heart. Yes !in all his life the dull pain was there, but his imperious will stifled and restrained it. But at times—and this midwinter night was one of tihose times — the pain was clamant, and not to be denied. It would have its way with him. and he must once more revive the old and miserable memories.

Thirty years ago, when he was the rising vicar of a north-country parish, Dr Joines's wife had died. She. left him with a Daby eon. In that time the chances of high preferment had seemed remote enough. No thought of great dignity and honour ever came to the hard-working clergyman. Ho realised nothing but that henceforth- he must live and labour alone until the end. But as the child began to grow and open its conscious eyes seriously upon life, a new impulse was born in its father's heart. He took courage, saw dimly a new ideal. Hia hopes revived as he watched this human blossom to which he had given life unfold.

Ambition awoke, and it was at this time that Dr Joines's preaching began to attract considerable attention, that "his monograph upon the Muratorian Fragment became widely known. He would make himself a pl'wa is th» world, he thought, so that his son should make a greater. He would become great that his son might start in life with rare advantages, equipped at every point. The boy grew. He was a silent, dreamy child, clever with his pencil, fond of his pjaho, but strangely indifferent to the ordinary delights of childhood. During this period, while his son was in the lower school at .Eton and had not yet "taken fourth form," the father wap so occupied with his own career that he had but little time to spend with his son and scant leisure to' observe his temperament. Great affairs began to engross the popular clergyman, his name was in everyone's mouth.

"I can't stop," he thought, " I can't stop now, I must get on for Charlie's aake. He 5s young yet; when I am higher up the ladder I can get to know him better and mould him as I will."

Success came, complete, sure, and dazzling, and with it an utter failure in all„that he held dearest.

As the Bishop reviewed the past a spasm, of pain shook him like a reed. With the unshed tears of a strong man in his tired eyes he rose from Ms chair and opened a locked drawer in the writingtable.

Ke took a leather despatch-box from the drawer, lifted the lid, and gazed mournfully at its contents, a photograph, two or three letters, and a newspaper cutting or so—that was all. But a deep sob of agony came from the Bishop as he saw them, for here were the few sad documents which meant the wreck of all his hopes. For &. minute or two he strode up and down the library, hes feet making no sound on the thick carpet. Then he turned once more to the table and took the papers from. the box. The first letter .was d&ted twelve years ago. It was the letter Charlie had written from Paris when he had fled from Eton in his last term. It was in answer to one from 'his father offering the boy one saoro chance. This was the letter:

Hotel de Londres, Quay Voltaire, Paris. My dear Father, —I have received your letter and thought it over very carefully, and the conclusion I have come to is that I cannot do what you ask. Oxford and the Bar or the Church, even with all the inducements you hold out, fill me with nothing but dislike. A painter's career—tlhe glorious career of art! —is all I care about. My whole soul is bound up 'in that. I am determined to succeed in my own way, and tihe fact- that you will not hely as any more if I stick to my real f/c-rk Joes not frighten me.—Your affectionate son,

Chari.es Joine

The Bishop laid down the boyish, boastful letter witlh a heavy sigh. Something of the old and justifiable anger of twelve years ago swept over hia. face like a Shadow over a wheat field.

-With trembling fingers he took up the second letter. A cutting from The Times ■was pinned ito it. This letter was dated five years after the cipher.

JOINE—COLLINS.—On the 22nd June, at St. Mary's, JJover, by-the Vicar, Obaa-les Dacro, only son of Dr F. S. Join**, the Bishop of Feuminsfccr, to Aninift Iraw, youngest diaaghl&r of P. Crowdy, M.D', of HoraseyThis was the announcement in the

"■JSfarringee" column, and when he had as ad it first the Bishop had known that his last lingering hopes for his son were dead.

The letter simply said that Charles had come ovr to Dover to> be married to an flirt-student he had met in Paris. She was

the daughter of a struggling doctor in North London. The writer said nothing of his circumstances, but merely asked for his father's blessing at this sacred and reponsibie time. ■ | To this letter the Bishop had never re>plied. There was one more cutting, four years old now.- It announced the death < s f the painter's wife. She had died in giving : birth to a son, even as her husband's | mother had done, making a woman's \ supreme sacrifice. And that was all. It was a simple ; story, a story with no disgrace in it> nothing bat bitter, headstrong foolishness. Since them the Bishop knew nothing of his son. He had passed out of his life, i But as he gazed at the photograph, j what agonies of regret and baffled hope came to the stern old man! Yesterday !he had sat at dinner with the King. 1 Where was his son, the hope of his . miiddle-aga, the bitterness of his life now ? j As the clock of the cathedral struck midnight and told the sleeping city that ! the vigil of Christmas had coma once I more to the world, the Bishop groaned | heavily. He was thinking of the precen- ! tor's words —how happily tfhat father was sleeping on this night! The door of the library opened suddenly. I The Bishop laid down the photograph. \ His valet ran into the room, but half- ! dressed and labouring under great exi citement. "My Lord," he said hurriedly, "Lord i Calross is dying, and sends an urgent f summons to you to come to him. He is | constantly asking for you. . One- of his I Lordship s carriages is waiting!"

The bedroom in which Baron Calross lay dying was warm- and silent. The doctor had gone, the nurse was in an adjoining room. Nothing more could be done. Tne dying man stood upon the brink of the dark river; all his dignities and wealth, his honours and position, were stripped from lira. Infinitely small, he stood upon the brink of eternity and waited the moment of his going. The Bishop sat in a chair by the bedside. _He had prayed humbly with the dying "man, and now the two old antagonists were face to face for the last time in this world. .

Lord Calross lay still and quiet. His venerable white beard streamed over the coverlet of the bed; they had to put a skull-cap of black silk on his head. "I knew you'd come, Bishop,'" said the old man. "I couldn't bear to die without knowing that there was no ill-feeling between us, that the old bitterness is all over. It has been my fault, Bishop, all these years, my fault! I have tried, to do what I thought was my duty, but I was blind and would not see the light. I did not know what I know now."

j "My dear brotheT,"-said the Bishop, i "your words cut me very deeply. I have been much to blame. To my sorrow, I say it, I have often thought bitterly of you. I have been hard and unkind. God is surely gracious in letting us make ! this kindly farewell. My heart is full j of joy and gratitude to Him in that He has permitted this, and especially that He has led you Home at Last." | There was a silence for a minute or two. I Then Lord Calross spoke again. "Let I me tell you," he said, "of what showed me the truth. It is a strange story, but it is one with a moral to it also!" «' He smiled, a wan, feeble smile. "Last i v ear my . dear wife's death hit me very hard. For 40 years, Bishop, we were everything to each other. When God took her all my interest in life seemed to dwindle. My plans for the Fenmimster ,; people lost their hold on me ; it seemed as if all my life were wasted. And I never believed that I should see Mary again. The story of another and better life seemed incrediriLe. Then I bought the picture—the picture!" v He stopped, gasping for breath. the Bishop thought that his mind was wandering, and rose to fetch the nurse. The 1 dying man arrested him with a faint movement of his hand. . The power of speech came back to him. "1 bought a picture," he said "It was in this year's Academy—by an unknown ; artist. I bought it through my agent for £3O. I should like to thank him, but it's too late now. I can't see now, Bishop, but you can. Pull the curtain on that wall—turn on the light. God . spoke to me in that picture!' 'The Bishop saw that the end was very near. But, obedient to the wish, he went to the wall facing the end of the bed. A curtain hung on a rod covered a picture. H° puKad it aside and switched on the electric light. There was a click, and the picture became suddenly illuminated. ; This was the picture. In a poorly-furnished bedroom a dead woman was lying The artist had painted the body with a certain realism. It was not repulsive, had none of the decadent horror such studies sometimes have in the Paris salon. But in the waxen face the painter had suggested something utterly louLleflß and dead. One felt as one looked at' Ifae picture that have was a husk, a shell—that the tenant of it was not th ßy'tbe side of the bed the husband of the dead woman was sitting. But he was not looking at the body. His face was turned upwards, and an inward glow of conviction irradiated it. The face shone with a serene and certain hop*. There was a marvellous glory In one corner of the picture a little boy of four or five years was sitting. With the supreme indifference of childhood he was happy and absorbed in building a house of 'books. Ho waa balancing a Bible upon an atlas that lay open at the ma"p of the world. But the Bishop reeled as if he had been struck. The face of the husband was the

face of his eon, changed and worn, but has son's face. And the child was the child he remembered nearly 30 years ago. In the corner of the picture the painter had slimed his name in vermilion letters. It was "Charles Joine."

The Bishop sank down upon the floor in a swoon. When he came to himself they told him that Lord Calrcss was dead, with a happy smile upon his features.

The secretary of the dead peer had been able to give the Bishop the address of the painter of the picture. It was at St. Ives, in Cornwall.

And as the eve of Christmas fell over the wild Cornish moors the special train which carried the Bishop was n earing its goal. Ha was going to bring his son and grandchild home to Fenminster for Christmas Day. His heart was full of awe and thankfulness, purged fer ever of all its bitterness and pride r humble, and yet jubilant also.

God had spoken, and in no uncertain way. He had shown the father His will. The rejected and outcast had done what all the learning and eloquence of the Prince of the Church had failed to do.

With faltering steps he mounted a granite stairway which led to one of the little sudios bv the harbour side.

It was very dark, and the Bishop could hardly find the latch of the door. He opened it at last, and went in without knocking.

A pale, bearded young man was.sitting at a very old piano; candles were lit in the brackets. They shone on the man's face and showed that tears were falling silently over his cheeks.

By his side was a little child singing in a tiny voice. His father was teaching him the old carol which all honest English folk sing on Christmas Eve—" Good King Wencelas." ~ The baby sang: Mark my footsteps well, my page, Tread thou in them boldly: Thou Shalt feel the winter's rage Freeze thy blodd less coldly! The Bishop saw hie son, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.