Two Strings to His Bow: In Two Parts. Part One

THE Rev. Cresswell Price was in his thirty-fifth year. He was not a striking preacher, of attractive appearance, or reputed to be able. He was lean and loose-jointed, with a thin face and ill-matched features. His one marked characteristic was awkwardness, and this was phenomenal. Even his vestments seemed to enhance the ungainliness they should have hidden. He stooped, and this gave him the effect of being tall if he stood straight, — an effect heightened, as one noted, by his big shoes and sprawling hands. His clerical attire intensified the impression. A parishioner of a race-track turn of mind used to say that “ if Price could he properly groomed and trained he would n’t make a half-bad show ; ” but the rector had neither wife, mother, nor sister to attend to this. He was absent-minded and intellectually slow, as it seemed. “ But,” observed the parishioners of St. Faith’s, as they admitted the truth of these criticisms, “he is so good ! ” This, when sifted, appeared to mean that he did his duty, and did not complain of his small salary. St. Faith’s had suffered from a series of impulsive and self-willed rectors, and the quiet which came with Mr. Price was welcome, if not inspiriting. Report hinted that he had with difficulty passed his clerical examinations, and one pert theologue from SeheinHeiligen College remarked that “ the man who could n’t pass a divinity school would stick in sliding down a greased pole.” But he had passed, as his letters of orders showed, and there was no reason why St. Faith’s and its rector should not abide in amicable, if not enthusiastic union.

Being a small parish, there was naturally a leading man in it, quite rich enough to carry the whole cost in his pocket, and quite willing to do so in all extraordinary expenses which he could control. St. Faith’s was blessed (or “ ’tothered,” as Joe put it) with a senior warden who was president of a city bank, and possessor of a “ competence ; ” that is to say, at least a million. Other people in the parish gave “ according to their means,” — which often signifies, as Winifred Jenkins would have expressed it, “ according to their meannesses.” Mr. Pennybacker, the warden, let them do this, and after vestry meeting was over would say quietly to the rector, “ Go ahead, and come to me for what balance you lack.” If he did not say this, the rector knew that the plan might as well be postponed to the Greek calends.

That Mr. Price was unmarried did not endanger the peace of the parish. He was not a widower, but a vague legend was current that he had, as student or deacon, “ loved and lost,” which, as says the poet, is better than “ never to have loved at all. “ This belief was so generally held concerning the rector that no spinster or lovelorn widow in St. Faith’s so much as dreamt of disturbing the grave of that buried attachment.

He was not a marrying man ; that is, a man to marry. The salary which St. Faith’s paid was enough for one, but scant for two. Also, it was raised in part by renting the rectory; of which rent, half went into the treasury, and the other half was set off against the board and lodging of the bachelor parson. He had two rooms in one wing of the large and commodious old rectory. He got his own breakfasts, in order to have them at such hours as suited him ; and as he took two thirds of his other meals with his parishioners, the arrangement suited the parish and was profitable to the lessee.

Of course the practiced reader foresees that this is to be a story of clerical trouble. The calm of the harbor is pictured to intensify the statement that it is blowing great guns outside. The trouble happened thus : The bishop visited the parish to confirm, and, as he had to go to a much larger parish in the evening, he had arranged to have the service at St. Faith’s, Bilhope, in the morning of a week day, and go on to St. John’s, Meadowbank, at half past four in the afternoon. Consequently he dined with the senior warden, and naturally the rector came, also.

Now, the bishop, as is the episcopal wont, took pains to show his presbyter in a favorable light, — talked of him, talked to him, and talked at him. But as Charles II. could make nothing out of George of Denmark, the husband of his niece Anne, so the tact and courtesy of one of the most accomplished prelates in the Church were sadly baffled by the phlegmatic reserve of Mr. Price. As a last resort he tried this remark : “ How much your handwriting is like mine! Your last letter really startled me, as if, like Mr. Toots, I had been corresponding with myself.”

“ Do you think so, bishop? broke in the warden. “ I should say it was much more like that of my clerk Sanford, who does my writing on parish matters for me.”

“I cannot say what other writing it resembles,” said the bishop, “but it certainly does mine. Why, you can know it by this : that the thought came into my head that if our friend were not doing such indispensably good work here, I would have him called to the city and make him my private secretary. The clergy do not realize the immensity of a bishop’s correspondence, and are sensitive if I only sign letters written by another. Now, if I could dictate to my brother here, or tell him what to write, it would save me wonderfully, and nobody would be the wiser.”

Pennybacker smiled a sub - sardonic smile at what he thought was the bishop’s covert meaning, which look the prelate was quick to interpret and prompt to parry.

“ Oh, I see,” he said, with a laugh, “ that you think episcopal letters do not always carry profound wisdom ; and between ourselves, that is sometimes their intention ; bishops have to overlook as well as oversee. But I hold to my point about the writing. I will try Mr. Price after dinner. I have to send back an answer to a note handed me at the train this morning, and I ’m quite sure the substitution will not be found out.”

“ I do not know,” said Price slowly. “ I was not aware of my gift. I think I am apt to write like the person I am answering, especially if I have his letter before me.”

“ Rather a dangerous faculty,” remarked the banker.

“ Yes,” returned the bishop, “ in the hands of one less trustworthy than my brother here, it might be. I don’t fear he will abuse it.”

“ Oh, that, of course. But we had a painful experience in the bank: dismissed a clerk on suspicion of forgery ; would have sent him up the river but for one thing, failure of proof. He was a Roman Catholic, and had confessed to his priest the whole thing ; but we could n’t put the priest on the stand. That is one of the things I have against the Church of Rome.”

“ Well, my dear friend, if Rome had no other fault, I think I might be reconciled to the Pope. I should hope any one of my presbyters would refuse to reveal a confession.”

“ But, bishop, suppose he is called as a witness ? What can he do ? ”

“ Go to prison, sir, for contempt of court. No judge would have the face to keep a worthy clergyman in jail for such a cause. I came near having the like happen in my diocese. But my presbyter had been at the bar before he took orders. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer, and so he was made counsel in the case, and stood upon his privilege.”

This talk lodged itself in Price’s mind, albeit he showed no sign of attention. It did the same with another listener, the warden’s nephew, who was a clerk in the bank, the Plutonian. Seemingly, the bishop forgot to test Price’s powers, but at the station he said to the warden, “ Take care of Price. I think he needs it.” Unluckily, the bishop meant one thing, the warden understood quite another. Pennybacker took it as a caution ; the bishop meant it for a hint. In effect the speaker said, “ Pull out your check book;” the hearer understood, “ Lock it up.

Two days after, the nephew, J. Augustus Pennybacker, called on Mr. Price. (The warden’s name was John Andrew.) The young gentleman was quite effusive, praised the rector’s last sermon, and skirmished round the subject for some time before he broached the topic of handwriting. At last he said, “ One of our men in the bank pretends that he can tell any imitation at sight. I was quite struck by what the bishop said at dinner, and I should like to try it on Gillespie. Here is a letter of mine, or part of one ; take it and try what you can do. I ’m not afraid that you will misuse it, seeing that the signature of John A. Pennybacker would n’t go far on the street. If it was my uncle’s, now, — but he always signs ‘ J. Andrew.’ ” The young man watched narrowly the effect of this statement, the reverse of true ; but the simple and absent-minded clergyman was entirely unaware of the trap.

“ As you are to have possession of my poor copies of your signature, I am not aware of any possible detriment which can arise; and so far as one may affirm his own rectitude of purpose, I can assure you that I will not use my power, if I possess it, in any way wrongfully.”

So, quite pleased to do a favor for a young man who had hitherto paid him scant and supercilious notice, the rector set to work. Young Pennybacker was polite, but fastidiously critical. He kept giving the writer fresh strips of paper which he tore from a memorandum book, as it seemed, that he had brought with him, and apparently destroyed each failure by throwing it into the fire. Price had not the faintest suspicion that he was putting upon the back of blank notes and drafts an indorsement good for any face value short of a million. Finally, J. Augustus professed himself satisfied that the thing could not be done, tore up the last attempt, and dropped it with seeming carelessness into the waste-basket; then he took his leave, with the feeling that his breast pocket was stuffed with dynamite cartridges.

He knew too much to put forged paper on the market. That is simply to thrust one’s head into a halter, and to invite the law to pull it. But he knew that one can keep collateral afloat for a long time by careful renewals, and when the lucky speculation happens the compromising paper is taken up, and nobody is the wiser. The first step is the risky one. Touch the button of credit, and the laws of business will do the rest. The one peril to shun is to be unexpectedly brought to book.

This J. Augustus well knew, and he took care to use his uncle’s signature only as a supporting reserve, never brought into action. He managed to do this for a year, and as he was cool and shrewd, with an inside command of valuable points, he was considerably better off at the end of the time ; only not quite in a position to retire the compromising paper. In a few years he might be able to do so easily, could he but keep his head, and refrain from plunging.

But the inability to go slow is the Nemesis of illicit finance. A favorite stock on the street startled everybody by falling when it was counted on surely for a rise. Affairs looked panic-ward, money tightened, and J. Augustus heard these ominous words : “You may be all right, but we must, for form’s sake, call your uncle’s attention to these notes. No doubt he operates through you, and, as a bank president, does not wish it known ; but, in the present condition of the market, he may tumble as well as another. His name backs you, but we want something to back his name.” Then the young man saw that the game was up. He had wild thoughts of using the rector’s talent anew, but he saw that signatures to papers of permanent and tangible value, as deeds or bonds, must be witnessed, and that detection would be inevitable.

He would fly to a land where extradition could not follow, and from thence negotiate. His creditors, when they found that they held only forged securities, would keep quiet and compromise, in the hope that he would make money abroad, and eventually pay in full, in order to return. He was known to be his uncle’s prospective heir, and if that elderly gentleman died, all would be plain sailing. If they insisted on their pound of flesh, Price might serve their turn. But for this he must close the rector’s lips effectually. So he once more sought the rectory of an evening, and insisted that the bewildered Price should hear his confession, which he poured out with the sobs and tears of penitence. He said that he had been tempted by the possession of a facsimile of his uncle’s signature, which he had accidentally failed to destroy; he had never meant to defraud, but only to obtain credit to tide over a business emergency: and he confided this to the priestly honor of the clergyman. The next day he sailed for South America. He sent back from the steamer a note to Price, saying that, in a fortnight, the whole might come to light, and in that case the rector had better look to his own safety. He added that, to get funds for his flight, he had used the signature which he had picked from the parson’s waste-basket to a note for five hundred dollars, which he had discounted at the bank. This would make it seem, if the other forgeries came to light, as if Price had been the sole culprit. Whatever the bank officials might surmise, the legal proof was only against Price, in whose favor the document was drawn. This was a pure fiction, as will presently appear. The point was that the rector had better escape before the fortnight expired. The burn on poor pussy’s paw was manifest, and the monkey manipulator made it look as if the last chestnut had been pulled out for the cat, and not for himself.

The rector’s first step was to go to town and consult his junior warden, a lawyer in good practice; but he did it after the manner of a man unfamiliar with lawyers’ offices. He was hampered by the knowledge which ho could not reveal, so he put hypothetical cases which were inextricably involved and hopelessly obscure. He stammered, prevaricated, and left behind him the vague impression that he had been doing something he was ashamed to tell, and carried away only the knowledge of the pains and penalties of forgery, and of the fact that his clerical character would hardly protect him as a witness. Then he went to his bishop, who, like the ever busy man that he was, answered the questions put to him with brief clearness and decision ; but as his answers were interpreted by the querist’s unspoken preconception they conveyed an utterly false impression. Price gathered that it was not in the bishop’s power to depose any clergyman without a trial; and as out of his own head he concluded that he could not be tried without being personally present, he felt that safety lay in disappearance. He also got a twisted impression as to the subject of confession : that oil no account was he to reveal secrets entrusted to him in what advanced ” clergymen are fond of calling the “ sacrament of penance. ’ It never occurred to one of the most practically common-sense prelates in the country that anybody could make use of the privilege of confession so as to close the mouth of one who aliunde was possessed of all the facts, and so disqualify a witness otherwise at full liberty to speak. Suppose the case had been put to him thus : “ I see a murder committed. The perpetrator, finding that I know his guilt, comes to me, as fiis priest, and confesses. Should that hinder me from giving evidence ? ” The bishop would have smiled, and said, “ By no means, my good brother. You give your testimony as a man and a citizen, and not as having obtained your knowledge in any confidential capacity.” Still stronger would have been the case if the concealment of the crime was likely to shift the suspicion of it from the doer to the spectator. But that was not the way in which poor Price put his clumsily constructed hypothetical case, and he took pains to intimate that he was not personally concerned. The bishop knew that something was amiss in the Pennybacker family; lie suspected that J. Augustus had made confidences, and he supposed his timid presbyter wanted to be strengthened in a proper reticence, and framed his counsel accordingly.

Up to this time Price had been a timid, vacillating, slow-minded man, doing his duties in a listless, perfunctory fashion. For the first time since he had come into holy orders he began to feel the real responsibility of his calling. He would not give it up. He would fight to the last to keep it, and to keep it untarnished. This stir of his emotional nature seemed to quicken his intellect. He realized the scrape he had been drawn into, and slowly but surely worked out the situation.

“ If I run,” said he, “ I am ruined. It is not likely that I should get a day’s start of pursuit. If caught in the act of flight, I cannot clear myself. It will be confession of guilt. I must be on the spot when the facts come out which will clear me.” (Be it said in parenthesis that he had but the dimmest notion of what the facts were, and not the faintest idea of the point which could help him. He trusted blindly to the chapter of accidents, which is not a bad trust if you do it blindly.) “ how, how,” he went on, “ can I be on the spot, and yet not be known ? ”

There were incidents in the earlier career of Cresswell Price which had hitherto been his bane. Like the stag in Æsop’s fable who despised his legs, but exulted in his antlers, he was now to be saved by that over which he had grieved. During his college course and in his seminary years he had maintained himself by vacation service as a waiter at summer hotels. This was known only to the president of his college and the dean of his divinity school. Even they did not know that in term time he had done occasional work of the like sort; and this had not only interfered with his hours of study, but had also somewhat affected his disposition. He was nervously afraid of being found out, not only at the time, but afterward, and in consequence he took pains to make his bearing, first as a student, and then as a clergyman, as unlike as possible to that of his other occupation. He came, too, of a New England rural community where it was all but an unwritten law that a minister should be distinguished by absent-mindedness, carelessness in dress and demeanor, and a general “ other-worldliness.” The moment he was admitted to the diaconate he began a systematic altering of his appearance. He let his hair grow long behind, and made a full beard and mustache cover as much of his face as it would. He put on spectacles, with plain glass instead of lenses, or slightly colored ones, though his eyesight was unusually clear and strong. He managed his illfitting clerical garb so as to give the effect of a general disjointed awkwardness. He schooled himself to live, move, and have his being as if he were by nature what he seemed. He cultivated a uniform deadness of manner and cold reserve, because he felt that in moments of vivacity and earnestness he ran most risk of detection. These ways, practiced in his earlier ministerial years with conscious care, had become so far habitual as to sit easily upon him.

So, too, during his “ waiting ” life he had rather exaggerated the traits of the genus servingman, — briskness, curtness of speech, and the like; and as he soon found out that assiduity and attention to the wants of guests brought special remuneration, he spared no pains, as his brother waiters, who took their calling professionally, were wont to do, and shirked no duty. “ It is only for the season,” he said to himself; “ let me make the most of it.” Indeed, at first there was a certain bitter enjoyment in masquerading. He found pleasure in the one or two narrow escapes he had ; as, for instance, when, at the Dunmore House, he had stood behind the chair of a professor of his own college, and heard him tell an English tourist opposite the story of one of the odd blunders made in class.

“ A fellow,”said he, “ named Price, or Prince, rendered Virgil’s line, ‘ O fons Bandusiæ splendidior vitro,’ ‘The Bandusian water sparkles in the glass.’ ”

“ Oh, very good ! D’ ye know, I ’d have been jolly well swished if I ’d made such a blunder when I was in the fourth form at Winchester ! So he re’lly took Horace for Virgil ? ”

Price found it hard to keep his face straight at the professor’s discomfiture, and the Englishman noticed it.

“ Come, now, I ’ll bet a fiver that fellow behind you knows better than that. They tell me that your ’varsity men are fond of doing the Jeames at these summer hotels. See here, my man, which is it, Flaccus or Maro ? ”

It was hard to say which was redder, the face of the waiter, or the neck and ears of the professor. For one wild moment, it flashed into the mind of the waiter to reply in the apt quotation,

which would have delighted the Briton, and perhaps mystified the Yankee. To the credit of his coolness, with a quaking heart, but a stolid face, he replied, “ I think we ’re out of it, sir, but I ’ll ask the head waiter ; ” whereat he vanished, and exchanged places with a fellow-servant as long as the professor remained at the Dumnore.

The memory of these past days came before him as he sat gloomily meditating in his study. He went to his desk, and hunted up the certificates of the landlords with whom he had served. They were made out in the name of one Robert Kenworthy, and to these he added a general testimonial to honesty and respectability, which he himself signed as the Rev. C. Price. This last was a masterpiece of tact (had he known it), for it was just that mixture of gushing simplicity and nervous caution which only a clergyman of the stamp of Price could possibly attain to. Then he made a trip to the city, got a supply of clothes proper to the new function he intended to take up, and spent one or two evenings in marking with his assumed name the various garments. The same week, he made a brief trip to a neighboring provincial city, where for years he had kept a savings-bank deposit in the name of Robert Kenworthy. He came to do this on the advice of an old clergyman, given him in his diaconate. Said the old parson, “ If you have any money of your own, Brother Price, it is just as well that your parish should n’t know it.”

“ Why so ? ” inquired the astonished deacon.

“ Because, first, they will always fancy that you have twice as much as you do possess; next, because it will be an excuse for the one stingy vestryman who is always found on a vestry to oppose any rise in your salary ; thirdly, it will be a pretext for calling upon you to contribute to every subscription for repairs and adornments ; and lastly, it will be taken for granted that you will keep up the vestry-room fittings and the parish library, and all the other matters which otherwise the elect ladies look after. If you wear a ragged or dingy surplice, it will be set down to your parsimony, and not to parochial stinginess. ‘ Oh, Mr. Price has money,’they will say. So, my good brother, if you have means of your own, don’t ‘let on.’ ”

“ But how shall I keep it from being known ? I suppose I shall do as I have done, and as my senior warden advised, — deposit in his bank ; especially as he was so kind as to intimate that if the salary should be in arrears, he would see that I had it credited every quarter.”

“ Oh yes, that is all right. I wish Pennybacker was my warden. But have a deposit elsewhere for any little savings, special fees, etc. ; have it stand in some other name, so long as you keep the book. You draw as trustee or guardian, or something of the sort, for a supposed minor cousin or nephew, or what you please. The savings bank will make no fuss. I have done this for twenty years.”

This counsel pleased Price, and, having no relatives to lend their names to this fiduciary purpose, he bethought himself of the name of Robert Kenworthy, which was not using another person’s name, and yet not exactly using a name without existence, as he said to himself, for the easement of his conscience.

Price was a little surprised at the amount standing to his credit, not having thought of the capabilities of compounded interest, and drew only a portion of the sum ; but that gave him ample provision for a month and more of inactivity, in case he failed to get a situation.

Thus prepared, Price waited the breaking of the storm. Happily, his temperament served him well. In fact, there were practically two men in the same body: the one keenly alive to every symptom of danger ; the other calm and phlegmatic, going about his routine duties without the slightest evidence of anything unusual. He was aware that, till the moment of betrayal came, he could keep the composed side in view.

So he made his parochial calls ; looked in as usual at the Friday afternoon meeting of the Ladies’ Guild of St. Faith’s, which in old days was called “ the Sewing Society ; ” wrote his sermon, which was as formally dry and commonplace as its predecessors; and when Sunday morning came read the service, preached, and gave out the notices for the coming week, as if he expected to attend to each one. Yet before he left the chancel he knew that the bolt was ready to fall.

When the slender offertory of St. Faith’s was handed to him, Mr. Price saw that the usual gold half-eagle which was wont to crown the dimes and nickels in the alms basin was missing, though Warden Pennybacker made the customary motion of his hand toward his vest pocket before he passed up the plate. The rector had also noticed that there was a stranger in the warden’s pew, who was evidently unfamiliar with the service, and had to be shown the places in the Prayer Book. Probably for the first time during his ministry at St. Faith’s, the rector, who was notoriously unconscious of the presence of strangers, not only was aware that one was in the church, but also noted that throughout his sermon this visitor was watching him with the keenest scrutiny. Ordinarily, Mr. Pennybaeker would have brought a guest to the vestry room, introduced him to his clergyman, and invited the rector to meet the stranger at dinner.

All this the other self of Mr. Price was keenly alive to, and was mentally working out a train of reasoning which resulted as plainly as could be in, “ Detective, detective.”

In further corroboration, the wife of the other warden waited for the rector after service, and said, “ My husband is not feeling well this morning, and did not get to church. I want him to stay up to-morrow, and if you can be at home then till noon I ’ll send him over to see you. To tell the truth, Mr. Price, the whole truth, I have partly made up this errand for him, in order to keep him from going to his office Monday. So please be sure to let him find you at the rectory, and keep him till he is too late for the 10.30 train. Now please don’t spoil my little plot.”

The Rev. Cresswell Price took all this au pied de la lettre ; but the newly awakened Robert Kenworthy, as one might say, began at once to work out the “true inwardness” thus: “Baldwin wants to see me, and does n’t wish me to suspect that he does. I think be is friendly, and means to be on band when I am arrested, so that I shall not give myself away ; or else he is working with Pennybacker, and plans to insure my being on hand. Which is it ? It can’t be the latter, because he would n’t take all this trouble unless he thinks I am innocent, and is afraid that if I slip away it will be taken for a proof of guilt. Mrs. Baldwin never got up such a scheme out of her own head. She knows that Baldwin would say at once, ‘ Put your message in a note, or go yourself ; you can do it as well as I can; I must go to town, to the office.’ No, it is quite plain that he has got up this plot, sickness and all of it, and wants an excuse for coming to see me bright and early. I’m to be picked up for the 10.30 A. M. My parishioners mostly go by the 8.15 express. I "m sure this is very kind of them.”

There was an afternoon service at St. Faith’s, at which the attendance was small. The congregation was mainly gathered from such domestics in Church families as cared to come. Then there were a few mill people from the Bilhope Brook woolen factory, and always one member of the vestry, there being a tacit agreement among them to do this in turn.

But the alarming stranger was in the Pennybacker pew, and as closely attentive as before to the brief address which did duty as a sermon. The sexton cheerfully alluded to the same in the sacristy, while he was helping the rector to unvest, and was bustling about putting in order the various papers and articles which would otherwise have been left in confusion.

“ D’ yer notice that strange gent in the senior warden’s pew, sir ? ” he said. “ He did n’t take his eyes off you the whole service, and ’specially while you was a-preachin’. Should n’t wonder if you was to get a call. When Mr. Martin was here we used to have ’em frequent, — ’most every other Sunday, sir ; committees, you know, from vacant parishes. I know the look of them. Don’t remember to have seen many very lately, though.”

Do you want me to leave, Thomas ? ” said the rector.

“ Oh no, not at all ; only it is n’t bad for a minister to have his people see that some other folks wants him. No, sir, you’ve kep’ things quiet and middling prosperous, and I dunno but we ’d as soon sit under you as ’most anybody. The bishop, he always says a good word for you to me. Why,” looking out of the vestry door, “ if that man ain’t a-goin’ down to the station ! Suppose he thinks he can send a telegram from here Sunday. That may do for the city, but not up here. By bein’ so eager, I guess this is what he wants to send : ‘ Mr. Price will do. Shall I give him a call to-morrow ? ’ If ’t was the other way, he’d not be in such a hurry. So, sir, I just say, you ’d better be prepared to know your own mind.”

The rector smiled sadly. “ I think I won’t accept till I am asked. Indeed, Thomas, I never mean to leave Bilhope till the way is unmistakably pointed out. I won’t cross the bridge till I come to it. You know what the catechism says about learning and laboring truly to get one’s own living, and doing one’s duty in the state to which God calls us.” Then the rector passed through the side door into the rooms occupied by him in the parsonage.

“ Well,” soliloquized Thomas, “ the rector don’t seem very much set up. Now, Mr. Jacques, he that was here before Mr. Martin, would have been all of a twitter. Wonder if it would wake him up, if he went to a new place ? I approve of a quiet minister, but Mr. Price is — well, as quiet as there’s any need to be.”

Thomas would hardly have thought the rector quiet could he have seen through the closed door of the study. He was pacing up and down, in a storm of passionate feeling. For the first time he felt the full fever of indignation at the trick which had been played him ; he experienced the terror at the exposure which was to blight his clerical good name; he protested against the sudden and ruthless abandonment of his work.

“ I will live it down ; I will clear myself ; and, please Heaven, if ever I am restored, I will do my duty as a priest and pastor in another and better fashion,” he murmured to himself.

He went back into the now empty and closed church, knelt down on the lowest step of the chancel, and prayed long and fervently. He returned to his abode, calm and composed. He was no longer Cresswell Price, but Robert Kenworthy, and resolved to remain so till the need was over.

Everything that he required was already packed in his gripsack. His books, papers, and sermons he left untouched. He dressed himself carefully in his new attire, and as soon as it was dark went quietly out at the vestry door, and stole round the chancel end of the church to a path which led through the graveyard to an unfrequented lane running down to the borders of Bilhope Brook, or, as it was commonly called, “ the Creek.”There he dropped an old clerical coat and waistcoat in the edge of the bushes, where they could hardly fail to he discovered and identified. He knew that at least one family of mill operatives would pass that way on Monday morning. “ There will surely be, for fortyeight hours, reports of my suicide,” he said to himself. “Given that start in a new position in life, and I am safe in the race.” He struck off at right angles from this spot through the woods, and reached the railroad.

Now, a railroad is like a running stream in its facility for obliterating traces. Two hours of brisk walking brought him to the third of the small stations at which the next morning’s accommodation train would stop, in the direction away from the city whither he was bound. All this he had planned out with exceeding care. There was, near by, a small tavern, patronized principally, by sportsmen, famed for its game suppers, and accustomed to be called on for rooms at almost any hour in the twenty-four. He reached it not far from midnight. The sleepy porter admitted him without a question, and took the payment in advance for a night’s lodging as a matter of course.

It was not difficult for the fugitive to appear the next morning with such changes in his personal appearance as he felt were necessary. He had shaved off the full beard which, as parson, be had worn, leaving his face entirely smooth ; cut his hair, which had been long and combed back; and as the latter work was far from satisfactorily accomplished, he sought the hotel barber and asked to be trimmed.

“ Who cut your hair last?” asked the tonsorial artist, after the manner of his kind.

“ Oh, I got the coachman to trim me up a bit; but he’s better at clippin’ horses than men. It did n’t matter much, when we was just on a gentleman’s place to keep it up, like, for the winter ; but now I am going to the city to get a situation, and I want to look English-like. That s the ticket, you know.”

“ "Where were you ? ”

“ Oh, up Lenox way ; that is to say, I’ve been out of Ne’ York for some time.” added Price, as a sort of salve to his conscience. The rector was working into his new part by dint of feeling himself that which he would become; and his success was evident, as the village Figaro named over to him several neighboring residents who might or did want a servant.

“ Thanks, much,” was the reply. “ If I don’t find what I want in the city, maybe I ’ll write you. My name ’s Kenworthy, Robert lvenworthy, and I ’ll be obliged if you ’ll mention it to any gentleman inquiring for a man to do indoors work, — waiter, butler, or the like. I can give good recommends.”

Then he strolled over to the station, and got on board the morning accommodation, which he knew would stop also at Bilhope. To himself he reasoned thus: “ When I was a boy, I used to fool the other fellows at hide-and-seek by taking the very nearest and simplest place by the goal; and ten to one they would pass right by, looking for the one farthest off, which they would have chosen. Now, that detective will take it for granted that I shall get as far away as I can at the start. He ’ll watch to see I don’t get aboard at Bilhope, and then look out for me at all the stopping-places down to the city.”

By way of putting his pursuers on this scent, he had left on his table the handbill of a European steamship company, carefully folded up, as if he had meant to take it, and also a half-sheet of notepaper with calculations on it of foreign currencies with the equivalents in dollars and cents.

He found a seat by the car window on the Bilhope side. As he expected, there was rather more than the usual Monday morning bustle. Pennybaeker stepped out of the telegraph office as the train drew up. The detective was lounging about with an air of indifference which was quite labored enough to put any “wanted ’ criminal on the qui vive. Baldwin was there, in spite of what his wife had said the day previous, and looking not at all unfit for his usual day’s work. “ Evidently they have found the bird flown,” thought the rector. "What next ? “ Pennybaeker stepped on board at the last moment, and the detective followed, getting on to the rear platform of the last car as it slid past him, so as to be sure that no one could board the train without his knowledge. Then the two went to the parlor car at the other end, and disappeared in one of the staterooms, out of sight and hearing. The reader is of course privileged to share their conversation.

“ Just what I expected,” said the officer. “ It would not do to take any chances, but I’ve no doubt, since I found him gone at midnight, that he got on the owl freight. That means, drop off at the first handy station, and take this train, when it comes along, probably not the first, but the second station down. If we don’t have him before we get to the Grand Central, then we must try the steamships. Fulda sails Wednesday, and we '11 most likely find him at one of the Hoboken hotels close by. If you’d said the word, I’d have picked him up as soon as the clock struck twelve ; but you could n’t make up your mind, and by one this morning he was off.”

“Never mind, returned the banker. “ I ’m not sure yet, and shall not be till I’ve been to the bank, whether I want him arrested.”

Meanwhile, two of Bilhope’s regular commuters had taken the seat behind Price. One of them stripped off and threw aside the outer and advertising sheet of his Herald. Price touched his hat, and said in a deprecatory manner, “ Might I take the liberty, sir, of looking at that ? ”

“ Certainly, my man. I don’t want it; keep it, if you like.” At the same time he gave a sharp look at Price, and then, as if moved by some occult suggestion of associated ideas, he said to his companion, “ Queer story that about the rector of St. Faith’s, is n’t it ? ”

“ Oh,” said the other, “ I can tell you the true inwardness of that. You see a check turned up at the Plutonian in favor of Price, and indorsed by him. The check was for five hundred, and signed by Pennybaeker. Now, Pennybaeker cannot tell whether the check is an outand-out forgery, or a genuine one raised from a five which he remembers to have given. His check book shows two of that date: one a fifty, which he gave Price, and one a five, payable to bearer, which he paid to the sexton of the church. It was not till Saturday that the fifty came in. It was handed to Price to pay the assessment of the church for convention dues, and came hack all right with the indorsement of the treasurer of the diocese. But the queer thing is that Pennybacker declares it is n’t his signature, but a poor imitation, which that check bears, while there is n’t a man in the bank but would swear that the five hundred one was signed by the president, and he himself won’t swear to the contrary.”

“ Raised, of course !”

“ There ’s where the doubt comes in. There is n’t a sign of any such tampering, and Pennybacker declares that when he draws those small checks, which he is in the habit of doing, to pay his little debts in the village, so as not to he supposed to he carrying money about him or keeping it at the villa, he takes special care to fill them in, so that they could n’t he raised without showing it at once.”

“ Forgery, you think, then ? ”

“ I can’t say. ”

“ How did it get into the bank ? ”

“ Deposited the usual way. Pennybacker has a special book for St. Faith’s, and gets the rector, who is just like a baby in arms in such matters, to indorse a lot of checks for each month. Then Pennybacker, warden and treasurer, signs one of these as it meets the salary for each month, and passes it to the receiving teller to go to Price’s account. "When the rector wanted money, he came to the warden. Warden always kept the run of the rector’s expenditures, told him how much he had to draw upon, filled him out a check for as much as he needed, and Price would get it cashed at any of the stores in Bilhope, or pass it over to his creditor. Then Baldwin, that’s Baldwin sitting over there; he ’s the junior warden, and, like most lawyers in large practice, is constantly getting money in considerable sums when it is too late to deposit the same day. That money he likes to change into checks whenever he can, so he is apt to stop at the rectory, as he comes up from town, and cash Price’s checks for him.”

“What does Pennybacker think ? ”

“ He does n’t know what to think. He is morally certain that he never gave Price a check for that amount. Could n’t have made a mistake.

Here another commuter of Bilhope, who sat across the aisle, leaned over and said, “Excuse me, but you are mistaken about the depositing of the check. The odd part is that there is no credit to Price for any such sum, either on his deposit book or on the bank books. The books show that five hundred was paid out on a check duly charged to the president, but they do not show to whom. Now, Price never got the money unless he had an accomplice, for he was not out of Bilhope between the 10th, when the check was dated, and the 16th, when it was cashed. The question is, where did the money go ? ”

“ Oh, she got it, no doubt,” said the second commuter, who had been a listener.

“ No, there you are out. Price never was mixed up in any such matter ; that has been looked up thoroughly. I don’t mean to say he was n’t a moral man and a clergyman, but, being a kind of innocent, he was open to blackmailing schemes, and so there ’s been a pretty sharp watch kept.”

“ From the 10th to the 16th! said the other musingly. “ When did young Pennybacker sail for Aspinwall? ”

“When? Oh, the 17th, I think. Yes, there are steamers the 3d and the 17th of each month.”

Then a silence fell upon the company, broken at last by the remark, “ There’s something queer in all this. Pennybacker isn’t the man to make an open fuss over a trifling loss. He is too strong a Churchman to let a scandal get out needlessly and to ruin his rector, especially as it might be from his own inadvertence. Depend upon it, there is something behind.”

“I don’t know about that. Forgery and check-raising are to these bank men what horse-stealing is to a Kentucky man of the Blue Grass region ; the fellow caught with a halter in his hand finds the other end of it round a hickory limb mighty sudden.”

“ Yes, that is in the way of business; but when a poor outsider like the parson gets drawn in there is more deliberation.”

“ I don’t know as to that. There is somewhere a very smart hand at work. You know that neither of us could go into a bank with a check payable to another person’s order, and indorsed by him, without being required to put our own name on the back of it. Now, this check was paid, and the teller cannot say to whom he paid it. It is an inside transaction altogether. Somebody in the bank has borrowed the money, and put this paper in to cover it. It never went through the regular routine of business. Besides, Price is the one to make a fuss, since he is charged with a five hundred he never got. I can’t see how he is in it, anyhow.”

“ Well, the president or somebody else hints something about a remarkable gift at imitating signatures which Price has. He does it unconsciously, they say. You write him a letter, and his reply will be in your very own handwriting. Then the indorsement is as unlike Price’s signature as can be. That looks fishy, does n’t it ? ”

“ Then why did the rector run ? ”

“ Has he run ? ”

“ Yes, or dropped into Bilhope Creek. They found an old coat of his this morning on the bank by Planter’s cowbarn, — boy brought it up to the rectory ; and when they went to his room to see what it meant, he wasn’t there. Most of his clothes were, — bis Sunday suit, just as if he had undressed and gone to bed.”

“Well, if he suicided, he wouldn’t have taken off his coat and vest. More like he put on another rig and went off on a tramp. What did they say about a steerage ticket for Europe on a North German Lloyd steamer ? ”

“ Not a ticket, but an advertising circular, such as they give you at the office. Depend upon it, he has the money, and to a man who never had ten dollars of his own in his pocket at one time five hundred would seem a fortune.”

“ Yes, but what started him ? ”

“ Oh, Pennybacker bad Crommelyn, the bank shadow, come from the city to look him up. I don’t believe be meant arrest and exposure, exactly, — at least he meant to give him a chance to explain in private, — but Price took fright and fled.”

“ You must he mistaken there, for Price wouldn’t know a detective from a hole in the ground, — a more absentminded, unobservant creature does n’t walk the earth; and as for a guilty conscience, I ’ll bet my head against a cocoanut dipper that he would n’t know he had done a wrong thing, or understand why he should be pulled up.”

“Well, perhaps. I’m not a believer in good human nature to quite that extent. He wasn’t a specially model parson, was he ? ”

“ No, perhaps not; that is, he was n’t a shining light in the Church ; but he was one of those who try to do their duty as well as they know how, and never dream of doing anything else. Jimmy Flatfoot generally makes his prey of your eminent Christians, the special saints above measure, who, like Siegfried or Achilles, have just one weak spot about them.”

“ That is, you think the contemptible are not the temptable.”

A laugh followed this sally, and then the first speaker, who was minded to change the topic, said, with a glance at the person before him, “ I wonder whether Sosia will find his Amphitryon ? ”

Price caught the allusion. Had it been to Molière instead of to the Latin comedy, it is doubtful whether he would. Sganarelle or Leporello would have had no meaning to him, but the classic names were familiar, and he was on the point of saying something which would have been highly perilous. Just then there appeared at the front of the car the warden followed by the detective. Price looked steadily at his paper, moving his lips as if spelling out the advertisements, but made no attempt to turn away or conceal his face. His heart was in his mouth, however, as the pair moved slowly through the car, looking to right and left. Just opposite his seat Peunybacker paused, but it was to exchange a word of civil greeting with the two commuters behind Price. During this pause the rector felt cold chills run down his spine, for it seemed precisely as if it were done to give the detective who followed a better chance to make his scrutiny. He was apparently satisfied, however, and went on.

Two hours later, Crommelyn, who had, of course, a theory of his own, appeared at the Plutonian Bank, and said to the president, “ I think we’ve got our man. He has been hanging round the Lloyd’s docks trying to get a steerage passenger to sell him his ticket. See, he wants to go under a false name, as if that ever baffled one of us ! ”

Very well,” returned the president. “ Make sure of his identity, and then I’ll cable to Southampton and have him arrested and brought back. That will give me just the fortnight’s delay I need. In fact, as I told you, it isn’t the forgery of the five-hundred-dollar check that I mind. — we owe Price as much as that, or nearly; but there ’s a more serious matter, — big paper which will mature in twenty days, and which, if I can’t deny the signatures, might hit me to the tune of fifty thousand. I may need Mr. Price as a witness ; and if he will tell me the whole truth, I can clear up, I think, the business so far as he is concerned. Then I ’ll let him off. Unless he turns out a worse man than I think he is, I certainly will. It is too late to save his ministerial good name, I ’m afraid, but I can get him some sort of work. If he had n’t bolted as he did, I could have saved him altogether, and then shipped him off as a missionary. As the boy said when he put the lead quarter on the plate, ‘ the little heathen would n’t know the difference.'”

Walter Mitchell.