The Bishop of Porthminster was sinking fast; they had sent for his
four nephews, his two nieces and their one husband. It was not
thought that he would last the night.

He who had been 'Cuffs' Cherrell (for so the name Charwell is
pronounced) to his cronies at Harrow and Cambridge in the 'sixties,
the Reverend Cuthbert Cherrell in his two London parishes, Canon
Cherrell in the days of his efflorescence as a preacher, and
Cuthbert Porthminster for the last eighteen years, had never
married. For eighty-two years he had lived and for fifty-five,
having been ordained rather late, had represented God upon certain
portions of the earth. This and the control of his normal
instincts since the age of twenty-six had given to his face a
repressed dignity which the approach of death did not disturb.
He awaited it almost quizzically, judging from the twist of his
eyebrow and the tone in which he said so faintly to his nurse:

"You will get a good sleep to-morrow, nurse. I shall be punctual,
no robes to put on."

The best wearer of robes in the whole episcopacy, the most
distinguished in face and figure, maintaining to the end the
dandyism which had procured him the nickname 'Cuffs,' lay quite
still, his grey hair brushed and his face like ivory. He had been
a bishop so long that no one knew now what he thought about death,
or indeed about anything, except the prayer book, any change in
which he had deprecated with determination. In one never
remarkable for expressing his feelings the ceremony of life had
overlaid the natural reticence, as embroidery and jewels will
disguise the foundation stuff of vestment.

He lay in a room with mullion windows, an ascetic room in a
sixteenth-century house, close to the Cathedral, whose scent of age
was tempered but imperfectly by the September air coming in. Some
zinnias in an old vase on the window-sill made the only splash of
colour, and it was noticed by the nurse that his eyes scarcely left
it, except to dose from time to time. About six o'clock they
informed him that all the family of his long-dead elder brother had
arrived.

"Ah! See that they are comfortable. I should like to see Adrian."

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