"I will gladly take what I can of your cross, my dear Bishop," Father Murray had answered, very simply; "but I am happier to see the crozier in more worthy hands. God has been good to me. I am satisfied."
"You will come to the cathedral as of old?" Though voiced as a request, the words were a command.
"Let me stay here, I beg of you," pleaded the priest. "I am no longer young--"
"Age is not counted by years."
"I love it here and--"
But the Bishop raised his hand, and the priest was silent.
"You may stay for the present. That much I grant you."
But Monsignore's heart was too full for long silence, his fears too great. He spoke hurriedly, pleadingly.
"Will you not protect me?"
"I may not be able to protect you."
"I am tired, my dear Bishop--tired, but contented. Here is rest, and peace. And when they come back, you know I want to be near them. Let me stay."
"Yes, I know," said the Bishop, and his voice forbade further plea. "You may stay--for the present."
Then the Bishop, too, had left; and now Monsignore was alone. He sat in his great armchair and watched the flames of the fire dancing and playing before him. He marveled at his pleasure in them, as he marveled at his pleasure now in the little things that were for the future to be the great things for him. Before his vision rose the cathedral he had builded, with its twin towers piercing the sky; but somehow the new organ of the little church gave him greater pleasure. "The people were so happy about having it," he had that day explained to Father Darcy. His wonderful seminary on the heights had once seemed the greatest thing in the world to him, but now it was less than the marble altars Mark had ordered for the little church only yesterday. He remembered the crowds that had hung upon his eloquence in the city, but now he knew that his very soul was mirrored in the simple discourses to his poor in Sihasset.
"I couldn't go back," he said to the burning log, "I couldn't be great again when I know how much true happiness there is in being little."
Then he lifted his eyes to where, from above the fireplace, there smiled down at him the benign face of Pius the Tenth. "Poor Pope," he said. "He has to be great, but this is what he would love. He never could get away from it quite. Doesn't he preach to the people yet, so as to feel the happiness of the pastor, and thus forget for an hour the fears and trials of the ruler?"