L A N D A N D VV A T E K . 
December 4, 1915. 
overheard. The boy was obstinacy itself ; nothing could 
move him — ii-t even the spectacle of a Baptist Minister 
in clerical attire walking about the stable with a tin 
bowl of soup in his hands. The Germans had said he 
w-as an Englishman :' ^•ery well — he would l>: one. It 
wasn't likely that he would be more comfortable in the 
trenches than in the stable, and he certainly wouldn't 
be as safe, etc., etc. ; with the result that Dr. Robinson 
had to pull other wires. 
He pulled them ; or perhaps it was the flock in the 
Khinc Provinces who pulled them for him. At all events, 
he was sent for, one day, to the Ortice known as the 
]'cncalfun^s Bunuiii. and came back carrying a scrap 
of paper which he called an Entlassungschdit. 
" It is the will of God," he said, " that, after having 
suffered, I should be rewarded because of my sacrod 
calling. I laid great stress upon my sacred calling in 
my petition for my release, and 1 ani to be set free this 
afternoon. To-night I shall have a good dinner in BcrUn ; 
to-morrow I shall once more be with my flock." 
Then he packed and prepared ; and the spectacle of 
the preparations long remained a treasured memory in 
the Camp. He fetched his best Sunday suit out of a bag. 
and put it on ; he untied the brown paper i^arccl which 
contained his Sunday hat. His shirt being dirty, he 
cleaned the cuffs with a nail brush ; and it appeared 
that he had a clean tie and a clean front kept in readiness 
for this very occasion. He borrowed a pocket mirror, and 
brushed his hair and eye-brows. His son, acting as his 
vaJet. brushed him down for at least a quarter of an hour. 
"'^^^' By Jove! You look every inch a Bishop," we 
exclaimed admiringly. 
"My attire is merely correct,", he repUed with 
dignity. " I am going to telegraph to the flock, in order 
that they may arrange a thanksgiving service, and it is 
necessary that I should be in a condition to attend it." 
•'.Thus speaking, he offered his hand, and walked to 
the gate, and passed out into the world, looking as if he 
liad ne\-er really been one of us at all but had merely 
visited the camp in order to bring spiritual consolation to 
the criminal classes. His son kept up an air of decorous 
sorrow till the last minute, -and then let his features rela.x 
into an exuberant grin. 
" It's all right," he said. 
" ^\^lat's all right ? " we asked. • 
. " His box of.cigars. I hid it away, and ho forgot all 
about it. It's nearly full." 
" It need not remain so," we said. And it did not 
remain so \-erv long. 
. So we bleked the Bishop, little as we had liked him, 
and agreed that nothing in his life in the Camp had be- 
come him like the leaving of it. The son, whose father 
had not allowed him to smoke, was specially delighted ; 
and the evening passed in unusual sociability. But 
when morning came 
, In the morning, a little after seven o'clock, we had 
t© walk to the other end of the Camp to fetch our coffee 
from the kitchen. Our way to and fro lay past the 
entrance gate ; and just as we were passing the gate a 
strange sight met our eyes. 
• The bell pealed, and the gate was slowlv swung open. 
Through it there solemnly marched two "soldiers with 
lixed bayonets, escorting a prisoner. We looked, with that 
curiosity with which we always looked out for new arri\als, 
and, to our amazement 
" Good gracious ! " we exclaimed. " Why, it's the 
Bisho)) I But what on earth . . . ! " 
Well might we wonder ; for the Bishop whom we saw 
return was of widely different aspect from the Bishop 
whom we had seen depart. Then he had been spick and 
span, and now he was dishevelled. His coat was torn and 
his white tie had come undone. The hat which he' had 
brushed so carefully was battered in, and his long beard 
seemed to be flowing in all directions at once. In that 
grptesc[ue condition he was marched off to the Com- 
mandantur to be inspected ; in that condition he presently 
returned to the Barrack in Avhich we were waiting to hear 
his story. 
He entered without a word, wrapped in unutterable 
gloom, and went straight to the corner in which he had 
left the cigar box. The box was there, but the cigars 
were gone. Dr. Robinson looked at it, much as a bereaved 
mother might look at an emptv cradle, and then said 
something in German. My defecti\e knowledge of Ger- 
man pre\-ents me from saying whether the remark which 
he made was suitable for a Baptist Minister ; but I have 
a suspicion that it was not. We felt, at any rate, that it 
was our turn to speak, and that we must offer explana- 
tions and apologies. 
" \Vc are so sorry," we said, "we had no idea that 
you were coming back to fetch it." 
He made a further remark in German. It was 
evidently an emphatic remark ; but I do not know 
enough German to translate it. Wc went on pohtely :— ^ 
" If we had only guessed that your flock was going to 
turn and rend you " 
He made atliird remark in German ; but then he 
broke into English and explained : — 
" It wasn't the flock, no_one will be more grieved 
than they. It w-as the police." ~ 
" Th?. Pohce ! " 
" You see I had been dining.' 
" Ah ! " 
" In a restaurant. It was so long since I had had a 
good dinner." 
" And you made up for lost time ? A Uttle sparkling 
hock ? " . . - 
" Only one bottle of it. Only one bottle, I assure 
you. Any one of you, I think, in my position, after 
enduring all these ■ hardships ' ' 
Any one of us assuredly, in such a case, would have 
found sparkling hock an irresistible temptation. Wc 
could not find it in ourselves to be censorious about the 
indulgence. We could only protest that it would not 
have knocked our hats in, or sent our beards, if we had 
worn any, straggling to all the points of the compass; 
but it seemed that, even in the Bishop's case, that con- 
sequence had only been indirect. The sparkling hock had 
made him expansive, and impelled to speak words in 
season. Tiie police had done the rest. 
' " I felt genial," he said. " genial towards you who 
had been my fellow prisoners. At the same time I felt 
that the hour had come to tell the truth— to let the world 
know how I, a minister of religion, had been compelled to 
sleep oil straw, and to fctcli my soup from the kitchen in a 
tin basin. It would have been wiser, no doubt, to wait 
until my own flock was gathered round me ; but I was 
impatient. I felt myself charged with a message, and 
I delivered it. Or rather I began to dehver it." 
^^ Then they would not let you finish ? " 
" They would not." 
" They argued with you ? " 
" If only they had been content witn argument ' 
But they were not. First there was contradiction and 
confusion— they called me an Englishman and insulted 
me—and then things were thrown and blows were struck • 
and then, all of a sudden, the police appeared." 
" And the police protected you ? " 
" Protected me ! " 
An eloquent gesture indicated the nature of the 
protection our Bishop had received froiii the Beiiin poli-r 
It was evident that they had handled him roughly, as 'is 
their habit. ^ -^ 
hotci''^'^*^" "^^""^ ^'^ ^°" ^'^^" '^^^ "'^'^^ ■ ^^ >'°^"" 
" No, at the police station." 
" And then ? '■ 
f..f'r^''''^'/''i^Pl"'"'''^, ^"'" i'^structions and were told 
tiiat I was to be brought back here at once 
_ Ihat was his story. We had to extract it from 
liim by questions as if we were drawing teeth • but he 
tlnSus"'' '''' ""' observation which was quite spon- 
reached my flock before you smoked my cig;ir.s." 
w'av Thcitr^ wii)l "' Christmas production at the Kings- 
way Ihcdtre uill be an important c\-ent in the musical woPld 
a. well as in the world of drama and literature or t 
■it-itrS In ^ f' *'''\P'^y ^y ^^'- Algernon Blackwood, 
comelv" f' is ! ^^^'A "°*^, ^" "P^'"-^^ "O"- ^ "musical 
tiuicien ant adult,, and Sir Edward Elgar is comnosine the 
incidental music and the orchestral s-^tt n- Tic sn 11 
ordiestra pit of the King.sway Theatre is o be enlarge 
oulei to accommodate a full orchestra. ^'"argcu lu 
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