On Monday Dole watched the parsonage gate narrowly, but when Sidney
at length came forth he found the little street silent, the doorways
dumb, the windows as expressionless as the patch upon a beggar’s eye.
But silence is often eloquent, speech lurks behind closed lips, and the
beggar’s patch is frequently only a pretence; as Sidney advanced, the
children, playing marbles or hop-scotch in the shade of the houses, rose
and ran within, the doors were closed by invisible hands as he drew near,
upon the window blinds he could see sometimes the silhouette, sometimes
the shadow of a peering face.
Dole had its preacher beneath its most censorious microscope—beneath
the lens of prejudice virtues are distorted to the semblance of vices,
but beneath the lens of personal disapproval faults become so magnified
that the virtues dwindle to mere shadows, and finally vanish. Furtive
scrutiny is nearly always condemnatory, and is in its very nature a thing
abhorrent; to a sensitive spirit it is simply a sentence of death. The
chill of it fell upon Sidney’s spirit and weighted its wings as with
leaden tears. Coming after the curious circumstance of his people’s
abrupt departure from the church, Sidney could not but connect their
present manifestation of coldness with his sermon.
What had he said? he asked himself, with an agonized effort to force his
memory to serve him, but like a spoiled, indulgent servant memory had
become a saucy menial and refused to do his bidding. It was impossible
for him to dream however that it was the substance of his sermon which
had offended them; he had never spoken aught to them but words of peace
and hope. It was the spirit doubtless to which they objected. Could it be
that, detecting the false ring in his faith, they had turned upon him, as
one who had led them from out the wholesome wind-swept places of their
stern creed, to the perilous shelter of an oasis of false hope, where
they would be crushed in the wreck of the palms of peace, whose stems had
no stability, but had sprung up mushroom-like out of human love, instead
of spiritual faith?
And such was the innate generosity of this man, that in the midst of his
own personal pain, he endured a yet more poignant pain when he thought
how their fears and their sorrows would rise to slay them, strong as
lions refreshed by rest. He had lulled them to sleep for awhile, was it
only that they might gather fresh strength?
One would have said that it would have been an easy matter for a priest
beset by these thoughts to vindicate himself before his deacons, but
Sidney did not want a hearing. If brought before the bar of their stern
orthodoxy what reason could he give why sentence should not be pronounced
upon him? And their verdict would break Vashti’s heart—the heart which he
had striven to satisfy with the gift of his own soul.
Things must go on as they were, he could demand no explanation—nor risk
precipitating the expression of any of his deacons’ doubts, for he knew,
by some blind, unreasoning intuition that his spirit, upon which he had
laid such burdens of deceit, would faint utterly before the ordeal.
He knew that never again could he force his lips to fashion a false
Profession of Faith.
Perhaps his search for the Holy Grail had been an unconscious one, yet
he had drawn very near the chalice. However faint his faith in the
divinity of the Cup of Christ might be, he yet felt it was far too holy
to be profaned by his lips. He abased himself as one who had partaken
unworthily.
There is an old parable anent those who pray at the street corners, and
he who does not dare even to lift up his eyes.
Sidney turned away from the mute condemnation of the village to the
bosom of the hill, and presently found himself over the crest and in the
hillside pasture where Lanty’s young horses kicked up their heels and
tossed their heads, in the arrogant freedom of two-year-olds.
Sidney paused and held out his hands to them, uttering little peculiar
calls, and they came to him, at first fearfully, then more confidently,
and at last with the boldness of happy ignorance; they did not know yet
that man’s hand imposes the bridle and the bit.
Sidney had a great fascination for dumb creatures whose instinct
distinguishes the real love from the false so much more surely than does
our reason. As Sidney stroked their velvety noses, and talked to them,
and let them lip his hand, a singular expression overspread his face. For
suddenly there faded from it every mark and line imprinted by experience.
The retrospect and dream of love faded from out his eyes and was replaced
by the innocent look of the child who enjoys the present moment and
anticipates the future with unshaken confidence, the look of one who has
neither desired, nor felt, nor yearned, nor suffered. It was a strange
thing—such a transformation as one sees sometimes when Death smooths out
the furrows and gives back to the worn body the brow of babyhood—signing
it with the solemn signet of eternal peace which never shines save above
eyes closed for ever. And when our mortal eyes behold this chrism we
tremble and call it unearthly, as indeed it is. And this halo shone upon
Sidney’s countenance as he fondled the young horses, and talked to them
as to brothers, and presently looking at them he began to question them.
“Why is it,” he said, “that you have that look in your great soft eyes?
I see it always, always in the eyes of you dumb creatures—a look as if
you if your hearts were bursting with the thoughts you cannot speak; as
if in proud humility you acknowledge that your faculties were maimed—as
if you too could render a reason for all that you do, if only you could
make it articulate—as if you plead with us to understand you—as if you
prayed piteously against the eternal silence which keeps you down. Ah! Do
not look at me like that! I know you feel and suffer and think! Look at
me as an equal. Surely when you are alone, quite alone, you look at each
other with different eyes? Free eyes bright with the unspeakable boon of
equality. May I not see you thus? Some night when the moon is high above
the tree tops, when the meadow lies like a bright green lake beneath its
beams, when the cat-bird calls from the bushes and there is no one here
but you, may I not come to you and see you look at each other, and at me,
proudly, as brother looks upon brother? For I am your brother! To breathe
is to be the brother of all that lives by breath. And see! how ready I
am to acknowledge kinship,” and so he babbled on and on, all forgotten
but the living creatures before him. At length the glory faded from his
face, little by little, as a fabric falls into its old folds, his face
resumed its normal expression, he patted the outstretched noses all round.
“What piteous eyes you have, poor fellows!” he said, and left them
stretching their glossy necks over the fence to him, and pressing their
broad breasts against it, till it creaked and cracked.
Dole maintained its attitude unchanged till Wednesday. Upon that day
Sidney, passing from the post office, with some books under his arm, met
Mrs. Smilie, who, going over to exchange views with Mrs. Simpson about
matters in general, and the preacher and the witch’s ghost in particular,
had left home very early, intending to return before dark.
There would be no more lonely twilight walks taken in Dole for some time
to come. The ghost had been seen by several individuals, all testified
to its height, its black robe, its white face. Truth to tell, Vashti,
dreading to be questioned about her husband’s views, had kept herself
close within doors all day long, and had taken her constitutionals in the
dusk. Did she intentionally play the part of spectre? Perhaps. Nor indeed
is it to be wondered at if she grasped at any distraction from her own
thoughts, for Vashti Lansing was beset with terrible fears. Working with
material she did not understand she had wrought havoc in her husband’s
brain. His mind had given evidence during the last day or two, not only
that it had partially escaped her control, but his own.
Once or twice she had seen the unearthly glory of confident innocence and
supernal peace upon his countenance, once or twice his mind had revolted
against the charm of her compelling eyes and waving hands; he had
apologized for this, as if his will was gone beyond his own control; once
or twice she chanced to look at him and met his eyes, and incontinently
he fell into a deep slumber.
Vashti’s soul fainted within her. How would it end?
Since the Sunday she had avoided any suggestion of making him sleep.
Alas! she had played with fire too long.
Sidney paused to speak pleasantly with Mrs. Smilie, but that good woman
did not wish to compromise herself in the eyes of the neighbours by
seeming to “side” with the preacher, before she had any idea as to the
probable state of the poll. “It will be the first division in the church
since long before Mr. Didymus’s day,” she soliloquized as she proceeded
on her way. “I don’t believe there would be any division if Temperance
and Nathan and Mabella and Lanty wouldn’t act up stubborn—but them
Lansings!”
These reflections took her as far as her friend’s house. The afternoon
wore on and Mrs. Smilie was thinking regretfully that it was time for
her to get home, and Mrs. Simpson was persuading her to stay with much
sincerity, for her larder was full, and Mrs. Smilie was primed with the
latest gossip, when there came the sound of voices to the two ladies,
and the next moment Mr. Simpson entered accompanied by Mr. Smilie. This
solved the problem, both should stay to supper. Mrs. Simpson bustled
about with the satisfaction of the housekeeper who knows she can load her
table, and presently they sat down and enjoyed themselves hugely over the
cold “spare-ribs” and hot biscuits.
After the table was cleared they sat talking some time.
The hour for “suppering up” the horses came. Mr. Simpson rose and Mr.
Smilie said they might as well be going, and went with him to get his
horse. As they opened the door a faint, yellow glare met their eyes. It
lighted up the moonless sky weirdly, and growing every moment brighter,
was at length pierced by a long spear of lurid flame.
“Wimmen!” shouted old Mr. Simpson. “Come on; Lanty Lansing’s being burned
out!”
The two men and women fled along the quiet road in utter silence. A
strange hush seemed to have fallen upon the scene, as if all nature’s
voices were silent before the omnipotent flames which leaped ever higher
and higher, as if threatening even the quiet skies. The men and women
felt themselves possessed by that strange, chilling excitement which
thrills the bravest hearts when confronted by unfettered flame. In the
country fire is absolutely the master when once it gains headway, it
roars on till it fails for lack of fuel. As they passed the few houses
along the way they paused to cry in short-breathed gasps, “Fire! fire!”
Some of the house doors were open to the night, showing their occupants
had gone forth hastily; some opened and let out men and women to join
the little party of four. The Rangers passed them on horseback, and, as
they came within sight of the house, they saw dark forms already flitting
before the fiery background, living silhouettes against the flame. It
was the great old-fashioned shed which was burning, but the summer wind
was blowing straight for the house, and three minutes after the Simpsons
arrived a flicker of flame shot out from the coach-house cornice, caught
the gable of the old house, crept up it, and fled along the ridge pole
like a venomous fiery serpent. Mabella came rushing up to old Mrs.
Simpson.
“Will you take care of Dorothy?” she said; “Lanty isn’t here—oh, isn’t it
terrible?” and then she fled back to show the men where the new harness
was in the house, and to try to get her sewing machine and a few other of
her housewifely treasures. All the neighbourhood was there working with
mad energy. These people might gossip and backbite and perhaps misjudge
each other sorely, but no need such as this found deaf ears. They knew
what such a catastrophe meant, how vital a thing it was, and wild with
the energy which is born of hopeless struggle, they strove to cheat the
fire-fiend’s greedy maw. Ab Ranger and young Shinar were rolling out the
barrels of flour from Mabella’s well-stocked storeroom, when, high above
the noise of the flames and the excited hum of voices, there came the
sound of wildly galloping hoofs. The next instant the roan, with Lanty
on her back, took the high fence as though it were in her stride, and
Lanty, flinging himself from the saddle, rushed to the burning house.
He could see for the moment neither wife nor child, nor did he know if
the neighbours had arrived in time. He was distraught with apprehension.
His wild ride since he had first seen the glimmer of the fire had seemed
to him as hours of agony. He ran hither and thither through the crowd
uttering incoherent demands for his wife and child.
Mabella appeared in the doorway. The flames lit up his face, distorted
with anxiety and terrible fear. A great throb of relief made his heart
leap, and released the sanguine blood which rushed to his head.
Mabella and Dorothy were safe—why was he idle?
He leaped towards the doorway, but Mabella, labouring under a deadly
apprehension, a terrible fear, had seen his face and been seized by a
panic.
“Lanty! Lanty! Don’t go in!” she cried.
“Not go in!” he said, and held on his way.
Then a terrible resolution came to Mabella; she had fought bravely to
keep up appearances, to hide her husband’s delinquencies, now she must
betray them to save him. Was she, for paltry pride, to risk letting him
enter the burning house in that condition? A thousand times no! He was
too dear to her. She caught hold if young Shinar, the strongest man in
Dole.
“Oh, Tom!” she cried, “hold Lanty—don’t let him go in. _He is not
himself._”
Her voice, shrill with fear and agony, rose above the duller sounds, and
pierced every ear there.
Lanty gave an inarticulate sound of grief and wrath and self-reproach.
The next moment he felt Shinar’s hand upon his shoulder, heard a
persuasive if rough voice in his ear, but what it said he did not know,
for a wild, blind rage possessed him, and he flung off the hand with a
curse. But Shinar would not let him go.
Lanty struck viciously, and the other man called between his teeth:
“Here, Ab—help me hold him”
Ab Ranger came, but it took another yet to hold Lanty, who, perfectly
sober, was at length mastered by sheer weight and held helpless, whilst
his neighbours strove to rescue what of his goods they could. And then
for a little time hot-headed Lanty, moved beyond himself, raved and
cursed, and gave colour to any supposition his neighbours cared to adopt
regarding his condition. Mabella approached him fearfully, yet her heart
was high with the courage which had enabled her to keep him from harm’s
way. But Lanty with an oath bade her begone. Horrified, she fled to where
Mrs. Simpson held Dorothy, and clasping her child in her arms fell upon
her knees, crying, from which position she was raised by Sidney’s gentle
touch. He was white-faced and terribly excited.
“Have you seen Vashti?” he asked Mabella when he had drawn her to her
feet.
“No,” began Mabella. “I——”
“Here I am,” said Vashti in even tones, from near where they stood. “I
have been here some little time, but Mabella has been too busy to see me.”
Then she turned away and went over to where the men still held Lanty.
“What’s the matter?” she demanded, her great eyes blazing, her face white
as death.
“Lanty ain’t himself,” said Ab Ranger.
“You are crazy!” said Vashti contemptuously.
“Mabella said——” began young Shinar.
“Let go of him,” said Vashti almost savagely. “How dare you! Lanty is as
sober as I am. The idea of you daring to do this thing! They ought to be
ashamed, Lanty!”
The detaining hands fell from him. He gave her one look of passionate
gratitude, the one sole recompense Vashti Lansing ever received for the
love which had ruined her whole life. The young men slunk away. Lanty
felt a terrible reaction sweep across him, and fell atrembling with real
physical weakness.
He remembered his repulse of Mabella.
“Vashti,” he said, “go and ask Mabella to come to me. I said something
ugly to her. I want her to forgive me.”
Vashti went with seeming readiness. Lanty rested white and trembling,
alone, before the flaming ruin of his home. Presently Vashti came towards
him slowly.
He raised his head.
“Where’s Mabella?” he asked. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but, Lanty, I’m very sorry, she won’t come.”
“Then she can stay,” said Lanty heart-brokenly. “If she has the heart to
hold out now she can stay; can I come home with you, Vashti?”
“Yes, of course,” said Vashti. “I’ll call Sidney, and you go home with
him. I’ll explain to everybody that you are all right. You had better go
and not get them all asking questions.”
So she brought Sidney, and the two men went away together. As they turned
their backs upon the scene there came a terrible crash. They turned and
looked.
The roof-tree of Lanty’s home had fallen in. He resumed his way with
tears brimming his eyes.
Vashti no sooner saw them depart than she hastened over to the group
about Mabella. Temperance was holding her in her arms.
As Vashti approached, the group gave way a little.
Mabella looked up.
“What did Lanty say?” she asked eagerly. “Is he ever going to forgive me?”
Vashti answered softly and with seeming hesitation, “Don’t take on too
hard, Mabella, but he has gone home with Sidney.”
Mabella comprehended the words and sank, a dead weight, in Temperance’s
arms.
Vashti went about in her quiet way, speaking to the oldest women,
explaining, or was it only hinting? to them in confidence, how incensed
Lanty was against Mabella, how angry Mabella was because of Lanty’s
words, how Sidney had taken Lanty home to wrestle with him, and how
Mabella and Dorothy were going home with Temperance.
Some of the men said they would stay all night, and watch, and gradually
the others departed, but even before they separated that night they had
found, by the corner of the barn, the point where the fire had been
lighted; kerosene oil had been poured upon broken-up shingles, taken from
the bundles laid there ready to reshingle the barn when the work grew
slack; more than that, Ab Ranger found a box of parlour matches, a luxury
little used in Dole; the box was marked with oily fingers.
Who had done this thing?
Mabella, numb with her despair, was taken home by Nathan and Temperance.
The tired men whispered together as they lay upon couches improvised of
the saved bedding, and watched the embers glow and flicker up into flame,
and die away, and leap up again and again.
Vashti was conducted home by the village people.
They stood at the gate watching her run up the little garden path, and
open the door of her home; she waved to them from the threshold, and
they knew she was safe from the ghost, and as the groups diminished and
separated the units composing them drew closer together, for a great fear
had laid hold upon Dole.
At length all found sleep, and some from exhaustion, some from despair,
some by reason of great grief slept well, but none of them all rested so
quietly as did an inert white-faced figure which lay upon the road to
Brixton, opposite Witches’ Hill in Mullein meadow. A sorrel horse sniffed
at the prostrate shape, and whinnied in the night, but it was not till
nearly noon the next day that the dead body of Hemans the machine agent
was found. His hands and clothes were covered with kerosene oil, in his
pocket was another box of parlour matches.
His neck was broken.
The burning of Lanty’s home had been terribly avenged.
Vashti Lansing, actuated by the spirit of unrest which possessed her, had
taken her big black shawl about her and fled swiftly through the by-ways
to Mullein meadow. She had no fears of the night. Her dark spirit was
akin to it. In its mystery she saw a simulacrum of the mysteries of her
own soul.
And as she sat upon the stones of Witches’ Hill and felt the summer wind
raising the heavy locks of hair upon her brow, a sense of peace and rest,
fleeting, but inexpressibly precious, came to her. Some strange influence
made her turn her head and she saw a tongue of flame shoot up like a
flaming dart of defiance hurled from earth to heaven. It was Lanty’s
home! As the thought formulated itself in her brain she was aware of the
soft thud, thud, of galloping hoofs coming towards Mullein meadow.
This was the guilty one fleeing from his work.
To think thus was to act. She fled across Mullein meadow to the Brixton
road, climbed the fence and crouched in the shadow. As the horse drew
near she recognized it in the starlight; knew its rider, and knew her
guess was right. Every one knew Hemans’ malignant nature, and his emnity
towards Lanty was a matter of common report.
The horse was almost abreast of her. She sprang out of the gloom, threw
up her arms, the black shawl waved uncertainly about her, the sorrel
reared, the man gave a scream of fear and fell upon the stony road
striking upon his head. Vashti gathered her shawl about her and fled
towards the light which was broadening and glowing against the dusky sky.
Thus Dole was not kept long in suspense as to who had set fire to Lanty’s
buildings, but the circumstances of his death were hidden from them, but
it intensified the superstitious fear which brooded over the village to
an agony to think Hemans had been found with his neck broken, exactly
upon the spot where young Ranger and Mr. Simpson had first seen the ghost
of the witch.
By the afternoon of the following day, Mabella Lansing and the baby
Dorothy were installed in the little two-roomed cottage, which alone, of
all the buildings upon Lanty’s property, had escaped the fire. She had
refused all offers of shelter. She would not even stay with Nathan and
Temperance.
“I am Lanty’s wife,” she said, “and as long as there is a roof belonging
to him I will live under it. I made a terrible mistake, but some day he
will forgive me.”
Within her own heart Mabella, great in her love and trust, thought it
would not be long till he came to her; she remembered those silent
moments in the past when Lanty had made mute acknowledgment of his fault,
and she had bestowed voiceless pardon. Mabella knew when she and Lanty
met there would be no need for words, and she felt the moment would be
too sacred for any other eyes, be they never so loving, to witness.
The first day passed; she saw Lanty at a distance working in the fields.
Friday came but did not bring him, and she grew nervous and frightened;
the day passed, and the night, but she was growing more and more nervous;
she started awake with terror many times during the night; she fancied
she saw a face at the window; she thought she heard footsteps round and
round the house.
Saturday brought her many visitors, Vashti among the rest. Vashti talked
to her about the finding of Hemans’ body, the ghost, and the terror which
the village lay under, and then departed.
As Saturday waned down to night a sick nervous fear oppressed Mabella;
she lit two lamps and tried to fight off her terrors. The ticking of the
clock seemed to grow louder and louder. Dorothy tossed in her sleep.
Mabella had kept the child awake to cheer her till the little one was
thoroughly over-tired. The tension became almost unbearable. She rose,
frightened at the sound of her own footstep and took Lanty’s violin from
the shelf; she could not play, but she thought it would comfort her to
pick at the vibrant strings which were so responsive to Lanty’s touch.
She seated herself beside the lamp—her back to the front door, and facing
the door in the rear. She thought she heard a noise behind her—she turned
swiftly to look over her shoulder—she caught the shadow of a face at
the front window—her eyes dilated. There came a sound from the rear
door, and a breath of air. She forced her eyes to look. A tall figure,
wrapped in black and with gleaming eyes, stood between the lintels.
The fiddle fell; its strings breaking with a shriek. Mabella gave one
scream of terror, “Lansing—Lansing!” and darted toward the cot where
the child lay—but ere she reached it the front door came crashing in,
as Lanty dashed his shoulders against it, and before Mabella quite lost
consciousness she felt his strong arms about her, and knew that nothing
could harm her.
With Mabella in his arms Lanty rushed across the little kitchen to the
empty portal of the rear door, and looked forth, and in the starlight saw
his cousin Vashti, with head down, running like a hunted hare for home.
“I know you!” he cried in a clarion-like voice—and Vashti heard.
Lanty, eager, yet ashamed to seek Mabella’s pardon, had held lonely vigil
without the little cottage; it was his footstep which had so terrified
her. It was the fleeting shadow of his face which she had seen. As she
looked around he had withdrawn out of sight, and was crouched beside the
window when he heard her cry of “Lansing—Lansing!” Only twice before had
she called him thus. Once when she came to his arms in Mullein meadow;
once during the terrible day when Dorothy came to them, and when Lanty
heard it the third time it was as a chord made up of the greatest joy,
the greatest agony of his life; he would have crossed the river of death
to answer it.
Mabella opened her eyes beneath his kisses. She looked at him, and put up
her hand to stroke his face. He caught it and pressed it against his eyes.
They were wet.
“Don’t, my dear,” she said. “You break my heart,” and then the tears
so long repressed gushed from her own eyes—and Lanty and Mabella were
each other’s again—and for ever. And when they were a little calmer they
talked together, and each learned how the other had chosen Vashti as an
ambassadress of peace.
“Poor Vashti!” said Mabella, a swift comprehension, denied to the
stupidity of man, coming to her woman’s heart.
“Poor Vashti!” echoed Lanty contemptuously. “Poor Vashti, indeed! Just
wait.”
“Oh, Lanty,” said Mabella with a sob in her voice, “don’t _you_ condemn
her; that would be too cruel.”
Lanty said nothing; he had his own thoughts. But the joy of their reunion
dwarfed all other interests and peace rested in their hearts.
And Vashti? She had shown no mercy; she expected none. That Lanty would
make her name a hissing in Dole she did not doubt.
But so strange is human nature, that Vashti Lansing, confronted with the
prospect of shame and mockery for herself, turned to thoughts of her
husband. She dreaded the ordeal of the service of the next day upon him.
A vague but omnipresent sense of uneasiness, quite apart from dread for
herself, weighed upon her. She took a lamp and went into Sidney’s room
softly; she bent above him. With the stillness of deep sleep upon him he
lay very quiet, the delicacy of his clear-cut countenance enhanced rather
than modified by the white pillow, and as he slept he smiled. To natures
such as his, which harbour neither dislike, distrust nor condemnation of
any living thing, sleep is indeed beneficent.
As Vashti looked, slow tears globed her eyes, but did not fall. They
were, in all honesty, tears for her husband, not for herself. She bent
nearer him and touched him with her lips—perhaps the only time she had
ever done so of her own volition.
“I must see him through to-morrow,” she murmured—then turning away she
left the room. What did she mean? It is hard to pierce to the core of
such a woman’s soul; but in her great eyes there was the look of one so
weary that the prospect of Eternal Sleep seems sweet.