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Page 5
"I love you," she said. "I'll kiss you," and the long, strong little
arms were around his neck, and it seemed to the Bishop as if a kiss that
had never been given came to him now from the lips of the child of the
woman he had loved. As he put her down gently, from the belfry above
tolled suddenly a sweet, rolling note for service.
When the Bishop came out from church the "peace that passeth
understanding" was over him. The beautiful old words that to churchmen
are dear as their mothers' faces, haunting as the voices that make home,
held him yet in the last echo of their music. Peace seemed, too, to lie
across the world, worn with the day's heat, where the shadows were
stretching in lengthening, cooling lines. And there at the vestry step,
where Eleanor had stood an hour before, was Dick Fielding, waiting for
him, with as unhappy a face as an eldest scion, the heir to millions,
well loved, and well brought up, and wonderfully unspoiled, ever carried
about a country-side. The Bishop was staying at the Fieldings'. He
nodded and swung past Dick, with a look from the tail of his eye that
said: "Come along." Dick came, and silently the two turned into the path
of the fields. The scowl on Dick's dark face deepened as they walked,
and that was all there was by way of conversation for some time.
Finally:
"You don't know about it, do you, Bishop?" he asked.
"A very little, my boy," the Bishop answered.
Dick was on the defensive in a moment. "My father told you--you agree
with him?"
"Your father has told me nothing. I only came last night, remember. I
know that you made Madge cry, and that Eleanor wasn't allowed to punish
you."
The boyish face cleared a little, and he laughed. "That little rat! Has
she been talking? It's all right if it's only to you, but Madge will
have to cork her up." Then anxiety and unhappiness seized Dick's buoyant
soul again. "Bishop, let me talk to you, will you please? I'm knocked up
about this, for there's never been trouble between my father and me
before, and I can't give in. I know I'm right--I'd be a cad to give in,
and I wouldn't if I could. If you would only see your way to talking to
the governor, Bishop! He'll listen to you when he'd throw any other chap
out of the house."
"Tell me the whole story if you can, Dick, I don't understand, you see."
"I suppose it will sound rather commonplace to you," said Dick, humbly,
"but it means everything to me. I--I'm engaged to Madge Preston. I've
known her for a year, and been engaged half of it, and I ought to know
my own mind by now. But father has simply set his forefeet and won't
hear of it. Won't even let me talk to him about it."
Dick's hands went into his pockets and his head drooped, and his big
figure lagged pathetically. The Bishop put his hand on the young man's
shoulder, and left it there as they walked slowly on, but he said
nothing.
"It's her father, you know," Dick went on. "Such rot, to hold a girl
responsible for her ancestors! Isn't it rot, now? Father says they're a
bad stock, dissipated and arrogant and spendthrift and shiftless and
weak--oh, and a lot more! He's not stingy with his adjectives, bless
you! Picture to yourself Madge being dissipated and arrogant and--have
you seen Madge?" he interrupted himself.
The Bishop shook his head. "Eleanor made an attempt on my life with a
string across the path, to-day. We were friends over that."
"She's a winning little rat," said Dick, smiling absent-mindedly, "but
nothing to Madge. You'll understand when you see Madge how I couldn't
give her up. And it isn't so much that--my feeling for her--though
that's enough in all conscience, but picture to yourself, if you please,
a man going to a girl and saying: 'I'm obliged to give you up, because
my father threatens to disinherit me and kick me out of the business. He
objects because your father's a poor lot.' That's a nice line of conduct
to map out for your only son. Yet that's practically what my father
wishes me to do. But he's brought me up a gentleman, by George," said
Dick straightening himself, "and it's too late to ask me to be a beastly
cad. Besides that," and voice and figure drooped to despondency again,
"I just can't give her up."
The Bishop's keen eyes were on the troubled face, and in their depths
lurked a kindly shade of amusement. He could see stubborn old Dick
Fielding in stubborn young Dick Fielding so plainly. Dick the elder had
been his friend for forty years. But he said nothing. It was better to
let the boy talk himself out a bit. In a moment Dick began again.
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