



Produced by David Widger





THE INSIDE OF THE CUP

By Winston Churchill



Volume 8.


XXVII.  RETRIBUTION
XXVIII. LIGHT



CHAPTER XXVII

RETRIBUTION


I

The Bishop's House was a comfortable, double dwelling of a smooth,
bright red brick and large, plate-glass windows, situated in a plot
at the western end of Waverley Place. It had been bought by the Diocese
in the nineties, and was representative of that transitional period in
American architecture when the mansard roof had been repudiated, when
as yet no definite types had emerged to take its place. The house had
pointed gables, and a tiny and utterly useless porch that served only to
darken the front door, made of heavy pieces of wood fantastically curved.

It was precisely ten o'clock in the morning when Hodder rang the bell and
was shown into the ample study which he had entered on other and less
vital occasions. He found difficulty in realizing that this pleasant
room, lined with well-worn books and overlooking a back lawn where the
clothes of the episcopal family hung in the yellow autumn sun, was to be
his judgment seat, whence he might be committed to trial for heresy.

And this was the twentieth century! The full force of the preposterous
fact smote him, and a consciousness of the distance he himself had
travelled since the comparatively recent days of his own orthodoxy.
And suddenly he was full again of a resentful impatience, not only that
he should be called away from his labours, his cares, the strangers who
were craving his help, to answer charges of such an absurd triviality,
but that the performance of the great task to which he had set his hand,
with God's help, should depend upon it. Would his enemies be permitted
to drive him out thus easily?

The old bishop came in, walking by the aid of a cane. He smiled at
Hodder, who greeted him respectfully, and bidding him sit down, took a
chair himself behind his writing table, from whence he gazed awhile
earnestly and contemplatively at the rugged features and strong shoulders
of the rector of St. John's. The effect of the look was that of a visual
effort to harmonize the man with the deed he had done, the stir he had
created in the city and the diocese; to readjust impressions.

A hint of humour crept into the bishop's blue eyes, which were watery,
yet strong, with heavy creases in the corners. He indicated by a little
gesture three bundles of envelopes, bound by rubber bands, on the corner
of his blotter.

"Hodder," he said, "see what a lot of trouble you have made for me in my
old age! All those are about you."

The rector's expression could not have been deemed stern, but it had met
the bishop's look unflinchingly. Now it relaxed into a responding smile,
which was not without seriousness.

"I am sorry, sir," Hodder answered, "to have caused you any worry--or
inconvenience."

"Perhaps," said the bishop, "I have had too much smooth sailing for a
servant of Christ. Indeed, I have come to that conclusion."

Hodder did not reply. He was moved, even more by the bishop's manner
and voice than his words. And the opening to their conversation was
unexpected. The old man put on his spectacles, and drew from the top
of one of the bundles a letter.

"This is from one of your vestrymen, Mr. Gordon Atterbury," he said, and
proceeded to read it, slowly. When he had finished he laid it down.

"Is that, according to your recollection, Mr. Hodder, a fairly accurate
summary of the sermon you gave when you resumed the pulpit at the end of
the summer?"

"Yes, sir," answered the rector, "it is surprisingly accurate, with the
exception of two or three inferences which I shall explain at the proper
moment."

"Mr. Atterbury is to be congratulated on his memory," the bishop observed
a little dryly. "And he has saved me the trouble of reading more. Now
what are the inferences to which you object?"

Hodder stated them. "The most serious one," he added, "is that which he
draws from my attitude on the virgin birth. Mr. Atterbury insists, like
others who cling to that dogma, that I have become what he vaguely calls
an