NEW SERIAL. LAPSE OF THE BISHOP.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 12 January 1922, Page 2

NEW SERIAL. LAPSE OF THE BISHOP.

By

GUY THORNE

Author of “When it was Dark,” etc. (Copyright). The story opens with Admiral Sir Beauchamp Peveril anti Mrs Stavely sitting upon the terrace walk of “Priors”, the beautiful mansion of the last remains of the famous old abbey buildigs of Psalmster. After the tennis set is. over, the visitors depart, and leave the Admiral’s daughter, Dorothy, and her fiance Herbert Masterman, alone. 11. And she guessed rather than knew that she only was able to bestow upon him the heaven that is within the gift of any woman who loves. She didn’t immediately go into the house, but sought the farthest recesses of the garden, and while the sky began to hang itself with banners, she gave herself up to ecstasy in a trance interwoven with all the loveliest and deepest things that she had ever felt in life, or read of in the lives of others. She sat in a. state of dreams, beneath a towering chestnut tree where the late bees still murmured among the crockets of pink blossom, overcome sometimes by rushes of joy, which were yet shot with some exquisite moments of pain, hungering for the hours that would bring her lover to her again. It was beginning to be dusk when she heard the roar of the dressing goog from the house beyond, and flitted over the lawns like a ghost. Herbert would just be going to the Palace, and as Dorothy thought of the Bishop, she laughed, half contemptuously, half with sympathy. “ Poor man, what could he know about life who knew not love!”

CHAPTER 11. THE BISHOP OF I’SALMSTKK. Herbert Masterman walked to the Mitre, the principal hotel in the City, it stood at the end of the High Street where it came out into the market square, half-way down the Cathedral Hill, and thus occupied the best position in Psalmster. The Mitre had always been prosperous in a good old-fashioned way. Substantial farmers made there for the market days “ordinary”—men well thriven upon the. marrow of the ox, and with a thirst for good ale as human and sincere as that daily bread for which they prayed to God on Sunday. Ten years ago the fame of the Mitre bad been dimmed. Alien financiers, realising that Psalmster was a place of pilgrimage from all parts of England and the United States, formed a company and bought the historic house. They introduced electric light, oak, Turkey rugs, and tables with tops of beaten copper—a change which by no means suited the old users and friends of the celebrated inn. They saw a style of things which they were entirely ignorant of, and to which, therefore, like stout fellows, they felt a furious hostility. The innovation roused nothing but harsh, hostile and unconquerable mirth. In four years the company went into liquidation, and Mr Dobson, once butler to Bishop Gofton, bought the freehold with the aid of a few friends, among whom, if lumour spoke truly, his lordship of Psalmster was one. Be that as it may, the Mitre once more revived its ancient glories. It was “ County ” and clerical. There was a “ Crockford ” to each bedroom on the first floor. Special hot breakfasts were arranged at 8.15, 915 and 10.15 to suit the tastes of clergy returning from early Celebration at the above mentioned hours These were served without extra charge in the bedrooms. In the event, and at the present moment, every country rector put up his trap and luggage at the Mitre when visiting the City. There was a tea room for the wives and daughters of the clergy, and Mr Dobson presided over everything with pontificial grace and suavity. , As Masterman came into the lowceilinged hall with its old engravings of the Cathedral, and bulging window of the office where Mrs Dobson and the bookkeeoer sat in black silk, Mr Dobson was standing at the foot of .the stairs. “ Your suit case has been taken to number three, sir,” he said to the Rector of Gorcombe. “ John, hot

water for his Reverence—it wilt be up in a moment, sir; you have plenty of time to change and get to the Palace before half-past seven.” Mr Dobson knew all about the new Rector of Gorcombe—he knew everything about all the clergy. Many of them confided in him, and asked his advice. He was a great man. To Herbert Masterman, engaged to Miss Peveril of “Priors ” and occupant of a benefice worth eight hundred a year, his manner was deferential and bland. “One of us,” he seemed to say. To the poorer clergy he was a kind friend, sending out many bottles of port, and fat capons from his farm two miles away at Christmas time; nor did Ife make any distinction between those who were well provided with this world’s goods and those who were not, for he was a generous an! kindly man. But be had his prejudices and they were deep-rooted

“ I cannot,” he would say to his wife, “ I reely cannot, Eliza, feel the same to a clergyman with a Durham degree as I can to Oxford or Cambridge, and as for that there Trinity College, Dublin—a mere steam boat degree—well, I have no use for any gentlemen of that kidney at the Mitre,” and when the new Bishop of Psalmster had actually appointed a clergyman who was an M.A. of London to St Cyprian-without-the-Walls, Mr Dobson had taken a decided line. He was - of the Canon Ogee party, and looked forward to the future with doubt. Indeed, the • great Greek scholar had himself acquainted Mr Dobson—from whose cellars he frequently replenished his own —with the fact that Dr Manners was an active teetotaller- “ You will find things changed, sir, I fear you will find things very much changed,” said Mr Dobson to Masterman. “Of course, we know very little about our new Bishop as yet, but .” Here Mr Dobson shook his head mournfully. “I can tell you this,” Masterman answered, “he is a splendid man in every way.” “ A great preacher, of course,” said the proprietor of the Mitre, “ and in

a sense the City should be honoured, but does Psalmster need eloquence, sir? That’s the question. One of those new northern bishoprics I don’t say, but we’re conservative people at Psalmster. You know his lordship, then, .1 I may make so bold as to ask, sir?” “ I have had the privilege of knowing him at Oxford and also at Ironpool, Mr Dobson, and his influence is wonderful.” Mr Dobson bowed m the manner of one who was not going to commit himself to any enthusiasm, and who reserved his own. Continued in to-morrow’s Advertiser. j • i ■ 1 "':e