The Bishop's Shadow Part 9

It was broad daylight outside before it was light enough in the church for the boy to see clearly, and then he looked hopelessly at the high window fastenings. He had tried every door but all were securely locked.

"Nothin' t' do but wait till that ol' cove comes back," he said to himself.

Then a thought flashed across his mind--a thought that made his heart stand still with dread. "S'posin' he don't come till next Sunday?"

Tode knew nothing about midweek or daily services. But he put this terrible thought away from him.

"I'll get out somehow if I have ter smash some o' them pictures," he said aloud, as he looked up at the beautiful windows.

The minutes seemed endless while the boy walked restlessly up and down the aisles thinking of his stand, and of the customers who would seek breakfast there in vain that morning. At last he heard approaching footsteps, then a key rattled in the lock, and Tode instinctively rolled under the nearest pew and lay still, listening to the heavy footsteps of the s.e.xton as he pa.s.sed slowly about opening doors and windows. The boy waited with what patience he could until the man pa.s.sed on to the further side of the church, then he slid and crawled along the carpeted aisle until he reached the door, when springing to his feet he made a dash for the street. He heard the s.e.xton shouting angrily after him, but he paid no heed. On and on he ran until he reached his room where Tag gave him a wildly delighted welcome, and in a very short time thereafter the stand at "Tode's Corner" was doing a brisk business.

V. IN THE BISHOP'S HOUSE

Tode's patrons were mostly newsboys of his acquaintance, who came pretty regularly to his stand for breakfast, and generally for a midday meal, lunch or dinner as it might be. Where they took their supper he did not know, but he usually closed his place of business after one o'clock, and spent a couple of hours roaming about the streets doing any odd job that came in his way, if he happened to feel like it, or to be in need of money.

After his meeting with the bishop he often wandered up into the neighbourhood of St. Mark's with a vague hope that he might see again the man who seemed to his boyish imagination a very king among men. It had long been Tode's secret ambition to grow into a big, strong man himself--bigger and stronger than the common run of men. Now, whenever he thought about it, he said to himself, "Just like the bishop."

But he never met the bishop, and having found out that he did not preach regularly at St. Mark's, Tode never went there after the second time.

One afternoon in late September, the boy was lounging along with Tag at his heels in the neighbourhood of the church, when he heard a great rattling of wheels and clattering of hoofs, and around the corner came a pair of horses dragging a carriage that swung wildly from side to side, as the horses came tearing down the street. There was no one in the carriage, but the driver was puffing along a little way behind, yelling frantically, "Stop 'em! Stop 'em! Why don't ye stop the brutes!"

There were not many people on the street, and the few men within sight seemed not at all anxious to risk life or limb in an attempt to stop horses going at such a reckless pace.

Now Tode was only a little fellow not yet fourteen, but he was strong and lithe as a young Indian, and as to fear--he did not know what it was. As he saw the horses das.h.i.+ng toward him he leaped into the middle of the street and stood there, eyes alert and limbs ready, directly in their pathway. They swerved aside as they approached him, but with a quick upward spring he grabbed the bit of the one nearest him, and hung there with all his weight. This frightened and maddened the horse, and he plunged and reared and flung his head from side to side, until he succeeded in throwing the boy off. The delay however, slight as it was, had given the driver time to come up, and he speedily regained control of his team while a crowd quickly gathered.

Tode had been flung off sidewise, his head striking the curbstone, and there he lay motionless, while faithful Tag crouched beside him, now and then licking the boy's fingers, and whining pitifully as he looked from face to face, as if he would have said,

"_Won't_ some of you help him? I can't."

The crowd pressed about the unconscious boy with a sort of morbid curiosity, one proposing one thing and one another until a policeman came along and promptly sent a summons for an ambulance; but before it appeared, a tall grey-haired man came up the street and stopped to see what was the matter. He was so tall that he could look over the heads of most of the men, and as he saw the white face of the boy lying there in the street, he hastily pushed aside the onlookers as if they had been men of straw, and stooping, lifted the boy in his strong arms.

"Stand back," he cried, his voice ringing out like a trumpet, "would you let the child die in the street?"

They fell back before him, a whisper pa.s.sing from lip to lip. "It's the bishop!" they said, and some ran before him to open the gate and some to ring the bell of the great house before which the accident had occurred.

Mechanically the bishop thanked them, but he looked at none of them. His eyes were fixed upon the face that lay against his shoulder, the blood dripping slowly from a cut on one side of the head.

The servant who opened the door stared for an instant wonderingly, at his master with the child in his arms, and at the throng pressing curiously after them, but the next moment he recovered from his amazement and, admitting the bishop, politely but firmly shut out the eager throng that would have entered with him. A lank, rough-haired dog attempted to slink in at the bishop's heels, but the servant gave him a kick that made him draw back with a yelp of pain, and he took refuge under the steps where he remained all night, restless and miserable, his quick ears yet ever on the alert for a voice or a step that he knew.

As the door closed behind the bishop, he exclaimed,

"Call Mrs. Martin, Brown, and then send for the doctor. This boy was hurt at our very door."

Brown promptly obeyed both orders, and Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, hastily prepared a room for the unexpected guest. The doctor soon responded to the summons, but all his efforts failed to restore the boy to consciousness that day. The bishop watched the child as anxiously as if it had been one of his own flesh and blood. He had neither wife nor child, but perhaps all the more for that, his great heart held love enough and to spare for every child that came in his way.

It was near the close of the following day when Tode's eyes slowly opened and he came back to consciousness, but his eyes wandered about the strange room and he still lay silent and motionless. The doctor and the bishop were both beside him at the moment and he glanced from one face to the other in a vague, doubtful fas.h.i.+on. He asked no question, however, and soon his eyes again closed wearily, but this time in sleep, healthful and refres.h.i.+ng, instead of the stupor that had preceded it, and the doctor turned away with an expression of satisfaction.

"He'll pull through now," he said in a low tone. "He's young and full of vitality--he'll soon be all right."

The bishop rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "That's well! That's well!" he exclaimed, heartily.

The doctor looked at him curiously. "Did you ever see the lad before you picked him up yesterday?" he asked.

"No, never," answered the bishop, who naturally had not recognised in Tode the boy whom he had taken into church that Sunday, weeks before.

The doctor shook his head as he drove off and muttered to himself,

"Whoever saw such a man! Who but our bishop would ever think of taking a little street urchin like that right into his home and treating him as if he were his own flesh and blood! Well, well, he himself gets taken in often no doubt in another fas.h.i.+on, but all the same the world would be the better if there were more like him!"

And if the doctor's p.r.o.nouns were a little mixed he himself understood what he meant, and n.o.body else had anything to do with the matter.

The next morning Tode awoke again and this time to a full and lively consciousness of his surroundings. It was still early and the nurse was dozing in an easy-chair beside the bed. The boy looked at her curiously, then he raised himself on his elbow and gazed about him, but as he did so he became conscious of a dull throbbing pain in one side of his head and a sick faintness swept over him. It was his first experience of weakness, and it startled him into a faint groan as his head fell back on the pillow.

The sound awoke the nurse, who held a spoonful of medicine to his lips, saying,

"Lie still. The doctor says you must not talk at all until he comes."

"So," thought the boy. "I've got a doctor. Wonder where I am an' what ails me, anyhow."

But that strange weakness made it easy to obey orders and lie still while the nurse bathed his face and hands and freshened up the bed and the room. Then she brought him a bowl of chicken broth with which she fed him. It tasted delicious, and he swallowed it hungrily and wished there had been more. Then as he lay back on the pillows he remembered all that had happened--the horses running down the street, his attempt to stop them, and the awful blow on his head as it struck the curbstone.

"Wonder where I am? Tain't a hospital, anyhow," he thought. "My! But I feel nice an' clean an' so--so light, somehow! If only my head wasn't so sore!"

No wonder he felt "nice and clean and light somehow," when, for the first time in his life his body and garments as well as his bed, were as sweet and fresh as hands could make them. Tode never had minded dirt. Why should he, when he had been born in it and had grown up knowing nothing better? Yet, none the less, was this new experience most delightful to him--so delightful that he didn't care to talk. It was happiness enough for him, just then, to lie still and enjoy these new conditions, and so presently he floated off again into sleep--a sleep full of beautiful dreams from which the low murmur of voices aroused him, and he opened his eyes to see the nurse and the doctor looking down at him.

"Well, my boy," said the doctor, with his fingers on the wrist near him, "you look better. Feel better too, don't you?"

Tode gazed at him, wondering who he was and paying no attention to his question.

"Doctor," exclaimed the nurse, suddenly, "he hasn't spoken a single word. Do you suppose he can be deaf and dumb?"

The bishop entered the room just in time to catch the last words.

"Deaf and dumb!" he repeated, in a tone of dismay. "Dear me! If the poor child is deaf and dumb, I shall certainly keep him here until I can find a better home for him."

As his eyes rested on the bishop Tode started and uttered a little inarticulate cry of joy; then, as he understood what the bishop was saying, a singular expression pa.s.sed over his face. The doctor, watching him closely could make nothing of it.

"He looks as if he knew you, bishop," the doctor said.

The bishop had taken the boy's rough little hand in his own large, kindly grasp.

"No, doctor," he answered, "I don't think I've ever seen him before yesterday, but we're friends all the same, aren't we, my lad?" and he smiled down into the grey eyes looking up to him so earnestly and happily.

Tode opened his lips to speak, then suddenly remembering, slightly shook his head while the colour mounted in his pale cheeks.