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[Illustration: "HE MAY GET LOST IN THE STORM."]
The Works of E. P. Roe
VOLUME FIVE
BARRIERS BURNED AWAY
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington
COPYRIGHT, 1882
COPYRIGHT, 1885
COPYRIGHT, 1892
COPYRIGHT, 1900,
This Book
IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
I shall say but few words in regard to this first child of my
imagination.
About one year ago our hearts were in deepest sympathy with our
fellow-citizens of Chicago, and it occurred to me that their losses,
sufferings, and fortitude might teach lessons after the echoes of the
appalling event had died away in the press; and that even the lurid
and destructive flames might reveal with greater vividness the need
and value of Christian faith.
I spent some days among the smouldering ruins, and then began the
following simple story, which has grown into larger proportions than
I at first intended. But comparatively a small part of the narrative
is occupied with the fire, for its scenes are beyond description, and
too strange and terrible to be dwelt upon. Therefore the thread of my
story is carried rapidly through that period of unparalleled excitement
and disaster.
Nearly all the scenes introduced are historical, and are employed to
give their terrible emphasis to that which is equally true in the
serenest and securest times.
E. P. R.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
LOVE UNKNOWN
CHAPTER II
LOVE KNOWN
CHAPTER III
LAUNCHED
CHAPTER IV
COLD WATER
CHAPTER V
A HORNET'S NEST
CHAPTER VI
"STARVE THEN!"
CHAPTER VII
A GOOD SAMARITAN
CHAPTER VIII
YAHCOB BUNK
CHAPTER IX
LAND AT LAST
CHAPTER X
THE NEW BROOM
CHAPTER XI
TOO MUCH ALIKE
CHAPTER XII
BLUE BLOOD
CHAPTER XIII
VERY COLD
CHAPTER XIV
SHE SPEAKS TO HIM
CHAPTER XV
PROMOTED
CHAPTER XVI
JUST IN TIME
CHAPTER XVII
RESCUED
CHAPTER XVIII
MISS LUDOLPH MAKES A DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XIX
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH HIM?
CHAPTER XX
IS HE A GENTLEMAN?
CHAPTER XXI
CHRISTINE'S IDEA OF CHRISTIANS
CHAPTER XXII
EQUAL TO AN EMERGENCY
CHAPTER XXIII
THE REVELATION
CHAPTER XXIV
NIGHT THOUGHTS
CHAPTER XXV
DARKNESS
CHAPTER XXVI
MISS LUDOLPH COMMITS A THEFT
CHAPTER XXVII
A MISERABLE TRIUMPH
CHAPTER XXVIII
LIFE WITHOUT LOVE
CHAPTER XXIX
DENNIS'S LOVE PUT TO PRACTICAL USE
CHAPTER XXX
THE TWO HEIGHTS
CHAPTER XXXI
BEGUILED
CHAPTER XXXII
BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE TWO PICTURES
CHAPTER XXXIV
REGRET
CHAPTER XXXV
REMORSE
CHAPTER XXXVI
AN APPARITION
CHAPTER XXXVII
IF HE KNEW!
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE GATES OPEN
CHAPTER XXXIX
SUSIE WlNTHROP APPEARS AGAIN
CHAPTER XL
SUGGESTIVE PICTURES AND A PRIZE
CHAPTER XLI
FIRE! FIRE!
CHAPTER XLII
BARON LUDOLPH LEARNS THE TRUTH
CHAPTER XLIII
"CHRISTINE, AWAKE! FOR YOUR LIFE!"
CHAPTER XLIV
ON THE BEACH
CHAPTER XLV
"PRAYER IS MIGHTY." CHRISTINE A CHRISTIAN
CHAPTER XLVI
CHRISTINE'S GRAVE
CHAPTER XLVII
SUSIE WINTHROP
CHAPTER XLVIII
DR. ARTEN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
CHAPTER XLIX
BILL CRONK'S TOAST
CHAPTER L
EVERY BARRIER BURNED AWAY
CHAPTER I
LOVE UNKNOWN
From its long sweep over the unbroken prairie a heavier blast than
usual shook the slight frame house. The windows rattled in the
casements, as if shivering in their dumb way in the December storm.
So open and defective was the dwelling in its construction, that eddying
currents of cold air found admittance at various points--in some
instances carrying with them particles of the fine, sharp, hail-like
snow that the gale was driving before it in blinding fury.
Seated at one of the windows, peering out into the gathering gloom of
the swiftly coming night, was a pale, faded woman with lustrous dark
eyes. An anxious light shone from them, as she tried in vain to catch
a glimpse of the darkening road that ran at a distance of about fifty
yards from the house. As the furious blast shook the frail tenement,
and circled round her in chilly currents from many a crack and crevice,
she gave a short, hacking cough, and drew a thin shawl closer about
her slight frame.
The unwonted violence of the wind had its effect upon another occupant
of the room. From a bed in the corner near the stove came a feeble,
hollow voice--"Wife!"
In a moment the woman was bending over the bed, and in a voice full
of patient tenderness answered, "Well, dear?"
"Has he come?"
"Not yet; but he MUST be here soon."
The word MUST was emphasized in such a way as to mean doubt rather
than certainty, as if trying to assure her own mind of a matter about
which painful misgivings could not be banished. The quick ear of the
sick man caught the tone, and in a querulous voice he said, "Oh! if
he should not get here in time, it would be the last bitter drop in
my cup, now full and running over."
"Dear husband, if human strength and love can accomplish it, he will
be here soon. But the storm is indeed frightful, and were the case
less urgent, I could almost wish he would not try to make his way
through it. But then we know what Dennis is; he never stops to consider
difficulties, but pushes right on; and if--if he doesn't--if it is
possible, he will be here before very long."
In spite of herself, the mother's heart showed its anxiety, and, too
late for remedy, she saw the effect upon her husband. He raised himself
in bed with sudden and unwonted strength. His eyes grew wild and almost
fierce, and in a sharp, hurried voice, he said: "You don't think there
is danger? There is no fear of his getting lost? If I thought that I
would curse God and die."
"Oh, Dennis, my husband, God forbid that you should speak thus! How can
you feel so toward our Best Friend?"
"What kind of a friend has He been to me, pray? Has not my life been
one long series of misfortunes? Have I not been disappointed in all
my hopes? I once believed in God and tried to serve Him. But if, as
I have been taught, all this evil and misfortune was ordered and made
my inevitable lot by Him, He has not been my friend, but my enemy.
He's been against me, not for me."
In the winter twilight the man's emaciated, unshorn face had the
ghostly, ashen hue of death. From cavernous sockets his eyes gleamed
with a terribly vindictive light, akin to insanity, and, in a harsh,
high voice, as unnatural as his appearance and words, he continued:
"Remember what I have gone through! what I have suffered! how often
the cup of success that I was raising to my lips has been dashed to the
ground!"
"But, Dennis, think a moment."
"Ah! haven't I thought till my heart is gall and my brain bursting?
Haven't I, while lying here, hopelessly dying, gone over my life again
and again? Haven't I lived over every disappointment, and taken every
step downward a thousand times? Remember the pleasant, plentiful home
I took you from, under the great elms in Connecticut. Your father did
not approve of your marrying a poor school-teacher. But you know that
then I had every prospect of getting the village academy, but with my
luck another got ahead of me. Then I determined to study law. What
hopes I had! I already grasped political honors that seemed within my
reach, for you know I was a ready speaker. If my friends could only
have seen that I was peculiarly fitted for public life and advanced
me sufficient means, I would have returned it tenfold. But no; I was
forced into other things for which I had no great aptness or knowledge,
and years of struggling poverty and repeated disappointment followed.
At last your father died and gave us enough to buy a cheap farm out
here. But why go over our experience in the West? My plan of making
sugar from the sorghum, which promised so brilliantly, has ended in
the most wretched failure of all. And now money has gone, health has
gone, and soon my miserable life will be over. Our boy must come back
from college, and you and the two little ones--what will you do?" and
the man covered his head with the blanket and wept aloud. His poor
wife, borne down by the torrent of his sorrow, was on her knees at his
bedside, with her face buried in her hands, weeping also.
But suddenly he started up. His sobs ceased. His tears ceased to flow,
while his eyes grew hard and fierce, and his hands clenched.
"But he was coming," he said. "He may get lost in the storm this bitter
winter night."
He grasped his wife roughly by the arm. She was astonished at his
sudden strength, and raised a tearful, startled face to his. It was
well she could not see its terrible expression in the dusk; but she
shuddered as he hissed in her ear, "If this should happen--if my
miserable death is the cause of his death--if my accursed destiny
involves him, your staff and hope, in so horrible a fate, what have
I to do but curse God and die?"
It seemed to the poor woman that her heart would burst with the agony
of that moment. As the storm had increased, a terrible dread had chilled
her very soul. Every louder blast than usual had caused her an internal
shiver, while for her husband's sake she had controlled herself
outwardly. Like a shipwrecked man who is clinging to a rock, that he
fears the tide will submerge, she had watched the snow rise from one
rail to another along the fence. When darkness set in it was half-way
up to the top rail, and she knew it was _drifting_. The thought of her
ruddy, active, joyous-hearted boy, whose affection and hopefulness had
been the broad track of sunlight on her hard path--the thought of his
lying white and still beneath one of these great banks, just where she
could never know till spring rains and suns revealed to an indifferent
stranger his sleeping-place--now nearly overwhelmed her also, and even
her faith wavered on the brink of the dark gulf of despair into which
her husband was sinking. Left to herself, she might have sunk for a
time, though her sincere belief in God's goodness and love would have
triumphed. But her womanly, unselfish nature, her long habit of
sustaining and comforting her husband, came to her aid. Breathing a
quick prayer to Heaven, which was scarcely more than a gasp and a glance
upward, she asked, hardly knowing what she said, "And what if he is
_not_ lost? What if God restores him safe and well?"
She shuddered after she had thus spoken, for she saw that her husband's
belief in the hostility of God had reached almost the point of insanity.
If this test failed, would he not, in spite of all she could say or do,
curse God and die, as he had said? But she had been guided in her
words more than she knew. He that careth for the fall of the sparrow
had not forgotten His children in their sore extremity.
The man in answer to her question relaxed his hold upon her arm, and
with a long breath fell back on his pillow.
"Ah!" said he, "if I could only see him again safe and well, if I could
only leave you with him as your protector and support, I believe I
could forgive all the past and be reconciled even to my hard lot."
"God gives you opportunity so to do, my father, for here I am safe and
sound."
The soft snow had muffled the son's footsteps, and his approach had
been unnoted. Entering at the back door, and passing through the
kitchen, he had surprised his parents in the painful scene above
described. As he saw his mother's form in dim outline kneeling at the
bed, her face buried in its covering--as he heard his father's
significant words--the quick-witted youth realized the situation. While
he loved his father dearly, and honored him for his many good traits,
he was also conscious of his faults, especially this most serious one
now threatening such fatal consequences--that of charging to God the
failures and disappointments resulting from defects in his own
character. It seemed as if a merciful Providence was about to use this
awful dread of accident to the son--a calamity that rose far above and
overshadowed all the past--as the means of winning back the alienated
heart of this weak and erring man.
The effect of the sudden presence in the sick-room was most marked.
The poor mother, who had shown such self-control and patient endurance
before, now gave way utterly, and clung for a few moments to her son's
neck with hysterical energy, then in strong reaction fainted away. The
strain upon her worn and overtaxed system had been too severe.
At first the sick man could only look through the dusk at the outline
of his son with a bewildered stare, his mind too weak to comprehend
the truth. But soon he too was sobbing for joy.
But when his wife suddenly became a lifeless weight in his son's arms,
who in wild alarm cried, "Mother, what is the matter? Speak to me! Oh!
I have killed her by my rash entrance," the sick man's manner changed,
and his eyes again became dry and hard, and even in the darkness had
a strange glitter.
"Is your mother dead?" he asked, in a low, hoarse voice.
"Oh, mother, speak to me!" cried the son, forgetting for a time his
father.
For a moment there was death-like silence. Then the young man groped
for an old settle in the corner of the room, laid his mother tenderly
upon it, and sprang for a light, but as he passed his father's bed the
same strong grasp fell upon his arm that his mother had shuddered under
a little before, and the question was this time hissed in his ear, "Is
your mother dead?" For a moment he had no power to answer, and his
father continued: "What a fool I was to expect God to show mercy or
kindness to me or mine while I was above ground! You are only brought
home to suffer more than death in seeing your mother die. May that God
that has followed me all my life, not with blessings--"
"Hush, father!" cried his son, in loud, commanding tones. "Hush, I
entreat," and in his desperation he actually put his hand over his
father's mouth.
The poor woman must have been dead, indeed, had she long remained deaf
to the voice of her beloved son, and his loud tones partially revived
her. In a faint voice she called, "Dennis!"
With hands suddenly relaxed, and hearts almost stilled in their beating,
father and son listened for a second. Again, a little louder, through
that dark and silent room, was heard the faint call, "Dennis!"
Springing to her side, her son exclaimed, "Oh, mother, I am here; don't
leave us; in mercy don't leave us."
"It was I she called," said his father.
With unnatural strength he had tottered across the room, and taking
his wife's hand, cried, "Oh, Ethel, don't die! don't fill my already
full cup to overflowing with bitterness!"
Their familiar voices were the best of remedies. After a moment she
sat up, and passing her hand across her brow as if to clear away
confusion of mind, said: "Don't be alarmed; it's only a faint turn.
I don't wonder though that you are frightened, for I never was so
before."
Poor woman, amid all the emergencies of her hard lot, she had never
in the past given way so far.
Then, becoming aware of her husband's position, she exclaimed: "Why,
Dennis, my husband, out of your bed? You will catch your death."
"Ah, wife, that matters little if you and Dennis live."
"But it matters much to me," cried she, springing up.
By this time her son had struck a light, and each was able to look on
the other's face. The unnatural strength, the result of excitement, was
fast leaving the sick man. The light revealed him helplessly leaning
on the couch where his wife had lain. His face was ashen in color, and
he was gasping for breath. Tenderly they carried him back to his bed,
and he was too weak now to do more than quietly lie upon it and gaze
at them. After replenishing the fire, and looking at the little ones
that were sleeping in the outer room, they shaded the lamp, and sat
down at his bedside, while the mother asked her son many eager questions
as to his escape. He told them how he had struggled through the snow
till almost exhausted, when he had been overtaken by a farmer with a
strong team, and thus enabled to make the journey in safety.
As the sick man looked and listened, his face grew softer and more
quiet in its expression.
Then the young man, remembering, said: "I bought the medicines you
wrote for, mother, at Bankville. This, the druggist said, would produce
quiet and sleep, and surely father needs it after the excitement of
the evening."
The opiate was given, and soon the regular, quiet breathing of the
patient showed that it had taken effect. A plain but plentiful supper,
which the anxious mother had prepared hours before, was placed upon the
kitchen table, and the young man did ample justice to it; for, the
moment the cravings of his heart were satisfied in meeting his kindred
after absence, he became conscious of the keenest hunger. Toiling
through the snow for hours in the face of the December storm had taxed
his system to the utmost, and now he felt the need of food and rest.
After supper he honestly meant to watch at his father's bedside, while
his mother slept; but he had scarcely seated himself on the old settle,
when sleep, like an armed man, overpowered him, and in spite of all
his efforts he was soon bound in the dreamless slumber of healthful
youth. But with eyes so wide and lustrous that it seemed as if sleep
could never close them again, the wife and mother, pale and silent,
watched between her loved ones. The troubled expression was gone, for
the ranks of her little band had closed up, and all were about her in
one more brief rest in the forward and uncertain march of life. She
seemed looking intently at something far off--something better discerned
by the spiritual than by the natural eye. Disappointments had been
bitter, poverty hard and grinding, but she had learned to escape into
a large world that was fast becoming real to her strong imagination.
While her husband was indulging in chimerical visions of boundless
prosperity here on earth which he would bring to pass by some lucky
stroke of fortune or invention, she also was picturing to herself
grander things which God would realize to her _beyond_ time and
earth. When alone, in moments of rest from incessant toil, she would
take down the great family Bible, and with her finger on some
description of the "new heavens and new earth," as the connecting link
between the promise and her strong realization of it, she would look
away with that intent gaze. The new world, purged from sin and sorrow,
would rise before her with more than Edenlike loveliness. Her spirit
would revel in its shadowy walks and sunny glades, and as the crowning
joy she would meet her Lord and Saviour in some secluded place, and
sit listening at His feet like Mary of old. Thus, in the strong illusion
of her imagination, Christ's words seemed addressed directly to her,
while she looked up into His face with rapt attention. Instead of
_reading_ her Lord's familiar sayings, she seemed to _listen_ to them as
did the early disciples. After a little time she would close the Bible
and go back to her hard practical life, awed yet strengthened, and with
a hopeful expression, like that which must have rested on the disciples'
faces on coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration.