The Bishop's Shadow Part 8

Tode stooped and called, "Come here, sir!" and, after a moment's hesitation, the dog crept slowly toward him with a low whine, still keeping his bright eyes fastened on the boy's.

"Poor old fellow," Tode said, gently, patting the dog's rough head. "Is it hurt? Let me see." He felt of the leg, the dog standing quietly beside him.

"'Tain't broken. It'll be all right pretty soon. What's your name?"

Tode said, and the dog rubbed his head against the boy's knee and tried to say with his eloquent eyes what his dumb lips could not utter.

"Got none--ye mean? You're a street dog--like me," the boy added. "Well, guess I'll go home an' get some supper," and he walked slowly away and presently forgot all about the dog.

He had lately hired a tiny garret room where he slept, and kept his supplies when his stand was closed. He went there now and ate his lonely supper. It had never before seemed lonely to him, but somehow to-night it did. He hurried down the food and started to go out again. As he opened his door, he heard a faint sound, and something moved on the dark landing.

"Who's there?" he called, sharply.

A low whine answered him, and from out the gloom two eyes gleamed and glittered. Tode peered into the shadow, then he laughed.

"So it's you, is it? You must have tagged me home. Come in here then if you want to," and he flung his door wide open and stepped back into the room.

Then out of the shadows of the dark landing the dog came slowly and warily, ready to turn and slink off if he met no welcome, but Tode was in the mood when even a strange dog was better than his own company. He fed the half-starved creature with some stale sandwiches, and then talked to him and tried to teach him some tricks until to his own surprise he heard the city clocks striking nine, and the long, lonely evening he had dreaded was gone.

"Well now, you're a heap o' company," he said to the dog. "I've a good mind ter keep ye. Say, d'ye wan' ter stay, ol' feller?"

The dog wagged his abbreviated tail, licked Tode's fingers, and rubbed his head against the ragged trousers of his new friend.

"Ye do, hey! Well, I'll keep ye ter-night, anyhow. Le' see, what'll I call ye? You've got ter have a name. S'posin' I call ye Tag. That do--hey, Tag?"

The dog gave a quick, short bark and limped gaily about the boy's feet.

"All right--we'll call ye Tag then. Now then, there's yer bed," and he threw into a corner an old piece of carpet that he had picked up on a vacant lot. The dog understood and settled himself with a long, contented sigh, as if he would have said:

"At last I've found a master and a home."

In a day or two Tag's lameness disappeared, and his devotion to his new master was unbounded. Tode found him useful, too, for he kept vigilant watch when the boy was busy at his stand, and suffered no thievish fingers to s.n.a.t.c.h anything when Tode's eyes and fingers were too busy for him to be on the lookout. The dog was such a loving, intelligent little creature, that he quickly won his way into Nan's heart, and he evidently considered himself the guardian of Little Brother from the first day that he saw Tode and the child together. Some dogs have a way of reading hearts, and Tag knew within two minutes that Tode loved every lock on Little Brother's sunny head.

A few days after that Sabbath that the boy was never to forget, he went to see Nan and the baby, and in the course of his visit, remarked,

"Nan, I seen the bishop last Sunday."

"What bishop?" inquired Nan.

"The one that talked at the big, stone church--St. Mark's, they call it."

"I wonder 't they let you in, if you wore them ragged duds," remarked Mrs. Hunt.

"The bishop asked me to go in an' he took me in himself," retorted Tode, defiantly.

"For the land's sake," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt. "He must be a queer kind of a bishop!"

"A splendid kind of a bishop, I should think," put in Nan, and the boy responded quickly,

"He is so! I never see a man like him."

"Never see a man like him? What d'ye mean, Tode?" questioned Mrs. Hunt.

Tode looked at her as he answered slowly, "He's a great big man--looks like a king--an' his eyes look right through a feller, but they don't hurt. They ain't sharp. They're soft, an'--an'--I guess they look like a mother's eyes would. I d'know much 'bout mothers, 'cause I never had one, but I should think they'd look like his do. I tell ye," Tode faced Mrs. Hunt and spoke earnestly, "a feller'd do 'most anything that that bishop asked him to--couldn't help it."

Mrs. Hunt stared in amazement at the boy. His eyes were glowing and in his voice there was a ring of deep feeling that she had never before heard in it. It made her vaguely uncomfortable. Her d.i.c.k had never spoken so about any bishop, nor indeed, about anybody else, and here was this rough street boy whom she considered quite unfit to a.s.sociate with d.i.c.k--and the bishop himself had taken him into church.

Mrs. Hunt spoke somewhat sharply. "Well, I must say you were a queer-lookin' one to set in a pew in a church like St. Mark's."

Nan looked distressed, and Tode glanced uneasily at his garments. They certainly were about as bad as they could be. Even pins and twine could not hold them together much longer.

"Tode," Mrs. Hunt went on, "I think it's high time you got yourself some better clothes. Dear knows, you need 'em if ever a boy did, an'

certainly you must have money 'nough now."

"'Spect I have. I never thought about it," replied Tode.

"Well, you'd better think about it, an' 'tend to it right away. 'F you're goin' to church with bishops you'd ought to look respectable, anyhow."

Something in the tone and emphasis with which Mrs. Hunt spoke brought the colour into Tode's brown cheeks, while Nan looked at the good woman in surprise and dismay. She did not know how troubled was the mother's heart over her own boy lately, as she saw him growing rough and careless, and that it seemed to her hard that this waif of the streets should be going up while her d.i.c.k went down.

Tode thought over what had been said, and the result was that the next time he appeared he was so changed that the good woman looked twice before she recognised him. His clothes had been purchased at a secondhand store, and they might have fitted better than they did, but they were a vast improvement on what he had worn before. He had scrubbed his face as well as his hands this time, and had combed his rough hair as well as he could with the broken bit of comb which was all he possessed in the way of toilet appliances. It is no easy matter for a boy to keep himself well washed and brushed with no face cloth or towel or brush, and no wash basin save the public sink. Tode had done his best however, and Nan looked at him in pleased surprise.

"You do look nice, Tode," she said, and the boy's face brightened with satisfaction.

All through that week Tode told himself that he would not go to the church again, yet day by day the longing grew to see the bishop's face once more and to hear his voice.

"W'at's the use! O'ny makes a feller feel meaner 'n dirt," he said to himself again and again, yet the next Sabbath afternoon found him hanging about St. Mark's hoping that the bishop would ask him in again. But the minutes pa.s.sed and the bishop did not appear.

"Maybe he's gone in aready," the boy thought, peering cautiously through the pillars of the entrance. There was no one in sight, and Tode crept quietly across the porch through the wide vestibule to the church door. Only the s.e.xton was there, and his back was toward the boy as he stood looking out of the opposite door.

"Now's my time," thought Tode, and he ran swiftly and silently up the aisle to the pew where the bishop had placed him. There he hesitated.

He was not sure which of several pews was the one, but with a quick glance at the s.e.xton's back, he slipped into the nearest, and hearing the man's footsteps approaching, dropped to the floor and crawled under the seat.

The s.e.xton came slowly down the aisle, stopping here and there to arrange books or brush off a dusty spot. He even entered the pew where Tode was, and moved the books in the rack in front, but the boy lay motionless in the shadow, and the man pa.s.sed on without discovering him.

Then the people began to come in, and Tode was just about to get up and sit on the seat, when a lady and a little girl entered the pew.

The boy groaned inwardly. "They'll screech if I get up now," he thought. "Nothin' for it but to lay here till it's over. Wal', I c'n hear _him_ anyhow."

"Him," in Tode's thought was the bishop, and he waited patiently through the early part of the service, longing to hear again that rich, strong, thrilling voice. But alas for Tode! It was not the bishop who preached that day. It was a stranger, whose low monotonous voice reached the boy so indistinctly, that he soon gave up all attempts to listen, and before the sermon was half over he was sound asleep. Fortunately he was used to hard resting-places, and he slept so quietly that the occupants of the pew did not discover his presence at all.

The music of the choir and of the organ mingled with the boy's dreams, but did not arouse him, and when the people departed and the s.e.xton closed the church and went home, Tode still slept on in darkness and solitude.

Usually there was an evening service, but on this occasion it was omitted, the rector being ill, so when Tode at last opened his eyes, it was to find all dark and silent about him. As he started up his head struck the bottom of the seat with a force that made him cry out and drop back again. Then as he lay there he put out his hands, and feeling the cushioned seat over his head, he knew where he was and guessed what had happened.

"Wal! I was a chump to go to sleep here!" he muttered, slowly, rising with hands outstretched. "'Spect I'll have ter get out of the window."

The street lights shining through the stained gla.s.s made a faint twilight in the church, but there was something weird and strange about being there alone at that hour that set the boy's heart to beating faster than usual.

He went to one of the windows and felt about for the fastenings, but he could not reach them. They were too high. He tried them all, but none were within his reach. Then he sat down in one of the pews and wondered what he should do next. He was wide awake now. It seemed to him that he could not close his eyes again that night, and indeed it was long after midnight before he did. He felt strangely lonely as he sat there through those endless hours, dimly hearing the voices and footsteps in the street without grow fewer and fainter, till all was silent save the clocks that rang out the creeping hours to his weary ears. At last his tired eyes closed and he slipped down on the cushioned seat and slept for a few hours, but he awoke again before daylight.