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"The joy that knows there _is_ a joy--
That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there!
And, patient in its pure repose,
Receiveth so the holier share."
Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction.
For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell
through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild
alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying
on; the river fought the fire; the rushing, exhaustless streams were
pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments
after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found
its work half done.
A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering
fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the
front, to tell the awful story of the night.
Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory
houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making
such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean
shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her
remonstrances, upon spreading above them.
"The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress
for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have
made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of
your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be
gone long, nor far away."
The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her
there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to
have been so long ago.
Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing
tumult--exhausted, patient, waiting.
"My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched,
and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should
have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep!
I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong
has told me what you have _done_. You have saved me half my property
here--do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?"
"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding
her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want
you--and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for,
when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I
have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know
yesterday--what I could not answer you then!"
"Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall
honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will
of God, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home."
"May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who
entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to
wrap Faith.
"I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's."
"You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to
us to care for you, I think."
"You do--you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly.
And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead
tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated
himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and
curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had
been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire;
and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or
heroines--had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and
precaution had warded it all off.
And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct
their efforts for his property.
Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger
Armstrong first went out.
She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was
to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the
light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at
length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come
round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister.
The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just
as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke
those words out of his restless dream:
"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"
They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary
fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them.
Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared.
She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he
waked.
"He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to
be cared for so!"
Glory--while we have so long been following Faith--had no less been
living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that
apprehended, that seized ideally--that was denied, so much!
As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself,
wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw
those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she
might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," clustered
radiant, and enshrined them in their light.
She saw always something that was beyond; something she might not
attain; yet, expectant of nothing, but blindly true to the highest
within her, she lost no glimpse of the greater, through lowering herself
to the less.
Her soul of womanhood asserted itself; longing, ignorantly, for a soul
love. "To be cared for, so!"
But she would rather recognize it afar--rather have her joy in knowing
the joy that might be--than shut herself from knowledge in the content
of a common, sordid lot.
She did not think this deliberately, however; it was not reason, but
instinct. She renounced unconsciously. She bore denial, and never knew
she was denied.
Of course, the thought of daring to covet what she saw, had never
crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was
something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to
be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, that she had this
beautiful life near her, and could look on it every day.
She could not marry Luther Goodell.
"A vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast";
But, unlike the maiden of the ballad, she could not smother it down, to
break forth, by and by, defying the "burden of life," in sweet bright
vision, grown to a keen torture then.
Faith had read to her this story of Maud, one day.
"I shouldn't have done so," she had said, when it was ended. "I'd rather
have kept that one minute under the apple trees to live on all the rest
of my days!"
She could not marry Luther Goodell.
Would it have been better that she should? That she should have gone
down from her dreams into a plain man's life, and made a plain man
happy? Some women, of far higher mental culture and social place, have
done this, and, seemingly, done well. Only God and their own hearts know
if the seeming be true.
Glory waited. "Everybody needn't marry," she said.
This night, with those words of Mr. Armstrong's in her ears, revealing
to her so much, she stood before that window of his and watched the
fire.
Doors were open behind her, leading through to Miss Henderson's chamber.
She would hear her mistress if she stirred.
If she had known what she did not know--that Faith Gartney stood at this
moment in that burning mill, looking forth despairingly on those bright
waters and green fields that lay between it and this home of hers--that
were so near her, she might discern each shining pebble and the separate
grass blades in the scarlet light, yet so infinitely far, so gone from
her forever--had she known all this, without knowing the help and hope
that were coming--she would yet have said "How beautiful it would be to
be like Miss Faith!"
She watched the fire till it began to deaden, and the glow paled out
into the starlight.
By and by, up from the direction of the river road, she saw a chaise
approaching. It was stopped at the corner, by the bar place. Two figures
descended from it, and entered upon the field path through the stile.
One--yes--it was surely the minister! The other--a woman. Who?
Miss Faith!
Glory met them upon the doorstone.
Faith held her finger up.
"I was afraid of disturbing my aunt," said she.
"Take care of her, Glory," said her companion. "She has been in
frightful danger."
"At the fire! And you----"
"I was there in time, thank God!" spoke Roger Armstrong, from his soul.
The two girls passed through to the blue bedroom, softly.
Mr. Armstrong went back to the mills again, with horse and chaise.
Glory shut the bedroom door.
"Why, you are all wet, and draggled, and smoked!" said she, taking off
Faith's outer, borrowed garments. "What _has_ happened to you--and how
came you there, Miss Faith?"
"I fell asleep in the countingroom, last evening, and got locked in. I
was coming home. I can't tell you now, Glory. I don't dare to think it
all over, yet. And we mustn't let Aunt Faith know that I am here."
These sentences they spoke in whispers.
Glory asked no more; but brought warm water, and bathed and rubbed
Faith's feet, and helped her to undress, and put her night clothes on,
and covered her in bed with blankets, and then went away softly to the
kitchen, whence she brought back, presently, a cup of hot tea, and a
biscuit.
"Take these, please," she said.
"I don't think I can, Glory. I don't want anything."
"But he told me to take care of you, Miss Faith!"
That, also, had a power with Faith. Because he had said that, she drank
the tea, and then lay back--so tired!
* * * * *
"I waited up till you came, sir, because I thought you would like to
know," said Glory, meeting Mr. Armstrong once more upon the doorstone,
as he returned a second time from the fire. "She's gone to sleep, and is
resting beautiful!"
"You are a good girl, Glory, and I thank you," said the minister; and he
put his hand forth, and grasped hers as he spoke. "Now go to bed, and
rest, yourself."
It was reward enough.
From the plenitude that waits on one life, falls a crumb that stays the
craving of another.