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Page 11
The congregation rustled softly everywhere as the people settled
themselves to listen--they listened always to him. And across the hush
that followed came the Bishop's voice again, tranquilly breaking, not
jarring, the silence. "Not disobedient to the heavenly vision," were the
words he was saying, and Fielding dropped at once the thread of his own
thought to listen.
He spoke quickly, clearly, in short Anglo-Saxon words--the words that
carry their message straightest to hearts red with Saxon blood--of the
complex nature of every man--how the angel and the demon live in each
and vary through all the shades of good and bad. How yet in each there
is always the possibility of a highest and best that can be true for
that personality only--a dream to be realized of the lovely life,
blooming into its own flower of beauty, that God means each life to be.
In his own rushing words he clothed the simple thought of the charge
that each one has to keep his angel strong, the white wings free for
higher flights that come with growth.
"The vision," he said, "is born with each of us, and though we lose it
again and again, yet again and again it comes back and beckons, calls,
and the voice thrills us always. And we must follow, or lose the way.
Through ice and flame we must follow. And no one may look across where
another soul moves on a quick, straight path and think that the way is
easier for the other. No one can see if the rocks are not cutting his
friend's feet; no one can know what burning lands he has crossed to
follow, to be so close to his angel, his messenger. Believe always that
every other life has been more tempted, more tried than your own;
believe that the lives higher and better than your own are so not
through more ease, but more effort; that the lives lower than yours are
so through less opportunity, more trial. Believe that your friend with
peace in his heart has won it, not happened on it--that he has fought
your very fight. So the mist will melt from your eyes and you will see
clearer the vision of your life and the way it leads you; selfishness
will fall from your shoulders and you will follow lightly. And at the
end, and along the way you will have the glory of effort, the joy of
fighting and winning, the beauty of the heights where only an ideal can
take you."
What more he said Fielding did not hear--for him one sentence had been
the final word. The unlaid ghost of the Bishop's puzzling talk an hour
before rose up and from its lips came, as if in full explanation, "He
has fought your very fight." He sat in his shadowy, dark corner of the
cool, little stone church, and while the congregation rose and knelt and
sang and prayed, he was still. Piece by piece he fitted the mosaic of
past and present, and each bit slipped faultlessly into place. There was
no question in his mind now as to the fact, and his manliness and honor
rushed to meet the situation. He had said that where his friend had gone
he would go. If it was down the road of renunciation of a life-long
enmity, he would not break his word. Complex problems resolve themselves
at the point of action into such simple axioms. Dick should have a
blessing and his sweetheart; he would do his best for Fairfax Preston;
with his might he would keep his word. A great sigh and a wrench at his
heart as if a physical growth of years were tearing away, and the
decision was made. Then, in a mist of pain and effort, and a surprised
new freedom from the accustomed pang of hatred, he heard the rustle and
movement of a kneeling congregation, and, as he looked, the Bishop
raised his arms. Fielding bent his gray head quickly in his hands, and
over it, laden with "peace" and "the blessing of God Almighty," as if a
general commended his soldier on the field of battle, swept the solemn
words of the benediction.
Peace touched the earth on the blue and white September day when Madge
and Dick were married. Pearly piled-up clouds, white "herded elephants,"
lay still against a sparkling sky, and the air was alive like cool wine,
and breathing warm breaths of sunlight. No wedding was ever gayer or
prettier, from the moment when the smiling holiday crowd in little Saint
Peter's caught their breath at the first notes of "Lohengrin" and
turned to see Eleanor, white-clad and solemn, and impressed with
responsibility, lead the procession slowly up the aisle, her eyes raised
to the Bishop's calm face in the chancel, to the moment when, in showers
of rice and laughter and slippers, the Fielding carriage dashed down the
driveway, and Dick, leaning out, caught for a last picture of his
wedding-day, standing apart from the bright colors grouped on the lawn,
the black and white of the Bishop and Eleanor, gazing after them, hand
in hand.
Bit by bit the brilliant kaleidoscopic effect fell apart and resolved
itself into light groups against the dark foliage or flashing masses of
carriages and people and horses, and then even the blurs on the distance
were gone, and the place was still and the wedding was over. The long
afternoon was before them, with its restless emptiness, as if the bride
and groom had taken all the reason for life with them.
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