The Bishops Secret

The Bishop's Secret, by Fergus
Hume

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Title: The Bishop's Secret
Author: Fergus Hume

Release Date: November 14, 2007 [eBook #23474]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Book Cover]
THE BISHOP'S SECRET
by
FERGUS HUME,
Author of "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," "For the Defense," "The
Harlequin Opal," "The Girl from Malta," Etc.

Chicago and New York: Rand, McNally & Company, Publishers.
Copyright, 1900, by Rand, McNally & Co. Copyright, 1906, by Rand,
McNally & Co.

PREFACE.
In his earlier works, notably in "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" and
"The Silent House in Pimlico," Mr. Hume won a reputation second to
none for plot of the stirring, ingenious, misleading, and finally
surprising kind, and for working out his plot in vigorous and
picturesque English.
In "The Bishop's Secret," while there is no falling off in plot and style,
there is a welcome and marvelous broadening out as to the cast of
characters, representing an unusually wide range of typical men and
women. These are not laboriously described by the author, but are
made to reveal themselves in action and speech in a way that has, for
the reader, all the charm of personal intercourse with living people.
Mr. Hume's treatment of the peculiar and exclusive ecclesiastical
society of a small English cathedral city is quite worthy of Anthony
Trollope, and his leading character, Bishop Pendle, is equal to
Trollope's best bishop. The Reverend Mr. Cargrim, the Bishop's poor
and most unworthy protegè, is a meaner Uriah Heep. Mrs. Pansey is the

embodiment of all shrewishness, and yields unlimited amusement. The
Gypsies are genuine--such as George Borrow, himself, would have
pictured them--not the ignorant caricatures so frequently drawn by
writers too lazy to study their subject.
Besides these types, there are several which seem to have had no exact
prototypes in preceding fiction. Such are Doctor Graham, "The Man
with a Scar," the Mosk family--father, mother, and daughter--Gabriel
Pendle, Miss Winchello, and, last but not least, Mr. Baltic--a detective
so unique in character and methods as to make Conan Doyle turn green
with envy.
All in all, this story is so rich in the essential elements of worthy
fiction--in characterization, exciting adventure, suggestions of the
marvelous, wit, humor, pathos, and just enough of tragedy--that it is
offered to the American public in all confidence that it will be generally
and heartily welcomed.
THE PUBLISHERS.
CHAPTER I
'ENTER MRS PANSEY AS CHORUS'
Of late years an anonymous mathematician has declared that in the
British Isles the female population is seven times greater than the male;
therefore, in these days is fulfilled the scriptural prophecy that seven
women shall lay hold of one man and entreat to be called by his name.
Miss Daisy Norsham, a veteran Belgravian spinster, decided, after
some disappointing seasons, that this text was particularly applicable to
London. Doubtful, therefore, of securing a husband at the rate of one
chance in seven, or dissatisfied at the prospect of a seventh share in a
man, she resolved upon trying her matrimonial fortunes in the country.
She was plain, this lady, as she was poor; nor could she rightly be said
to be in the first flush of maidenhood. In all matters other than that of
man-catching she was shallow past belief. Still, she did hope, by dint of
some brisk campaigning in the diocese of Beorminster, to capture a
whole man unto herself.

Her first step was to wheedle an invitation out of Mrs Pansey, an
archdeacon's widow--then on a philanthropic visit to town--and she
arrived, towards the end of July, in the pleasant cathedral city of
Beorminster, in time to attend a reception at the bishop's palace. Thus
the autumn manoeuvres of Miss Norsham opened most auspiciously.
Mrs Pansey, with whom this elderly worshipper of Hymen had elected
to stay during her visit, was a gruff woman, with a scowl, who 'looked
all nose and eyebrows.' Few ecclesiastical matrons were so well known
in the diocese of Beorminster as was Mrs Pansey; not many, it must be
confessed, were so ardently hated, for there were few pies indeed in
which this dear lady had not a finger; few keyholes through which her
eye did not peer. Her memory and her tongue, severally and combined,
had ruined half the reputations in the county. In short, she was