As I got near there was a strange smell stealing out on the damp
night air. I heard a snapping noise inside—I saw the light above grow
brighter and brighter—a pane of the glass cracked—I ran to the door and
put my hand on it. The vestry was on fire!
Before I could move, before I could draw my breath after that
discovery, I was horror-struck by a heavy thump against the door from
the inside. I heard the key worked violently in the lock—I heard a
man’s voice behind the door, raised to a dreadful shrillness, screaming
for help.
The servant who had followed me staggered back shuddering, and dropped
to his knees. “Oh, my God!” he said, “it’s Sir Percival!”
As the words passed his lips the clerk joined us, and at the same
moment there was another and a last grating turn of the key in the lock.
“The Lord have mercy on his soul!” said the old man. “He is doomed and
dead. He has hampered the lock.”
I rushed to the door. The one absorbing purpose that had filled all
my thoughts, that had controlled all my actions, for weeks and weeks
past, vanished in an instant from my mind. All remembrance of the
heartless injury the man’s crimes had inflicted—of the love, the
innocence, the happiness he had pitilessly laid waste—of the oath I
had sworn in my own heart to summon him to the terrible reckoning that
he deserved—passed from my memory like a dream. I remembered nothing
but the horror of his situation. I felt nothing but the natural human
impulse to save him from a frightful death.
“Try the other door!” I shouted. “Try the door into the church! The
lock’s hampered. You’re a dead man if you waste another moment on it.”
There had been no renewed cry for help when the key was turned for
the last time. There was no sound now of any kind, to give token that
he was still alive. I heard nothing but the quickening crackle of the
flames, and the sharp snap of the glass in the skylight above.
I looked round at my two companions. The servant had risen to his
feet—he had taken the lantern, and was holding it up vacantly at the
door. Terror seemed to have struck him with downright idiocy—he waited
at my heels, he followed me about when I moved like a dog. The clerk
sat crouched up on one of the tombstones, shivering, and moaning to
himself. The one moment in which I looked at them was enough to show me
that they were both helpless.
Hardly knowing what I did, acting desperately on the first impulse that
occurred to me, I seized the servant and pushed him against the vestry
wall. “Stoop!” I said, “and hold by the stones. I am going to climb
over you to the roof—I am going to break the skylight, and give him
some air!”
The man trembled from head to foot, but he held firm. I got on his
back, with my cudgel in my mouth, seized the parapet with both hands,
and was instantly on the roof. In the frantic hurry and agitation of
the moment, it never struck me that I might let out the flame instead
of letting in the air. I struck at the skylight, and battered in the
cracked, loosened glass at a blow. The fire leaped out like a wild
beast from its lair. If the wind had not chanced, in the position I
occupied, to set it away from me, my exertions might have ended then
and there. I crouched on the roof as the smoke poured out above me
with the flame. The gleams and flashes of the light showed me the
servant’s face staring up vacantly under the wall—the clerk risen to
his feet on the tombstone, wringing his hands in despair—and the scanty
population of the village, haggard men and terrified women, clustered
beyond in the churchyard—all appearing and disappearing, in the red
of the dreadful glare, in the black of the choking smoke. And the man
beneath my feet!—the man, suffocating, burning, dying so near us all,
so utterly beyond our reach!
The thought half maddened me. I lowered myself from the roof, by my
hands, and dropped to the ground.
“The key of the church!” I shouted to the clerk. “We must try it that
way—we may save him yet if we can burst open the inner door.”
“No, no, no!” cried the old man. “No hope! the church key and the
vestry key are on the same ring—both inside there! Oh, sir, he’s past
saving—he’s dust and ashes by this time!”
“They’ll see the fire from the town,” said a voice from among the men
behind me. “There’s a ingine in the town. They’ll save the church.”
I called to that man—HE had his wits about him—I called to him to come
and speak to me. It would be a quarter of an hour at least before
the town engine could reach us. The horror of remaining inactive all
that time was more than I could face. In defiance of my own reason
I persuaded myself that the doomed and lost wretch in the vestry
might still be lying senseless on the floor, might not be dead yet.
If we broke open the door, might we save him? I knew the strength
of the heavy lock—I knew the thickness of the nailed oak—I knew the
hopelessness of assailing the one and the other by ordinary means. But
surely there were beams still left in the dismantled cottages near the
church? What if we got one, and used it as a battering-ram against the
door?
The thought leaped through me like the fire leaping out of the
shattered skylight. I appealed to the man who had spoken first of the
fire-engine in the town. “Have you got your pickaxes handy?” Yes, they
had. “And a hatchet, and a saw, and a bit of rope?” Yes! yes! yes!
I ran down among the villagers, with the lantern in my hand. “Five
shillings apiece to every man who helps me!” They started into life
at the words. That ravenous second hunger of poverty—the hunger for
money—roused them into tumult and activity in a moment. “Two of you
for more lanterns, if you have them! Two of you for the pickaxes and
the tools! The rest after me to find the beam!” They cheered—with
shrill starveling voices they cheered. The women and the children fled
back on either side. We rushed in a body down the churchyard path to
the first empty cottage. Not a man was left behind but the clerk—the
poor old clerk standing on the flat tombstone sobbing and wailing over
the church. The servant was still at my heels—his white, helpless,
panic-stricken face was close over my shoulder as we pushed into the
cottage. There were rafters from the torn-down floor above, lying loose
on the ground—but they were too light. A beam ran across over our
heads, but not out of reach of our arms and our pickaxes—a beam fast
at each end in the ruined wall, with ceiling and flooring all ripped
away, and a great gap in the roof above, open to the sky. We attacked
the beam at both ends at once. God! how it held—how the brick and
mortar of the wall resisted us! We struck, and tugged, and tore. The
beam gave at one end—it came down with a lump of brickwork after it.
There was a scream from the women all huddled in the doorway to look at
us—a shout from the men—two of them down but not hurt. Another tug all
together—and the beam was loose at both ends. We raised it, and gave
the word to clear the doorway. Now for the work! now for the rush at
the door! There is the fire streaming into the sky, streaming brighter
than ever to light us! Steady along the churchyard path—steady with the
beam for a rush at the door. One, two, three—and off. Out rings the
cheering again, irrepressibly. We have shaken it already, the hinges
must give if the lock won’t. Another run with the beam! One, two,
three—and off. It’s loose! the stealthy fire darts at us through the
crevice all round it. Another, and a last rush! The door falls in with
a crash. A great hush of awe, a stillness of breathless expectation,
possesses every living soul of us. We look for the body. The scorching
heat on our faces drives us back: we see nothing—above, below, all
through the room, we see nothing but a sheet of living fire.
“Where is he?” whispered the servant, staring vacantly at the flames.
“He’s dust and ashes,” said the clerk. “And the books are dust and
ashes—and oh, sirs! the church will be dust and ashes soon.”
Those were the only two who spoke. When they were silent again, nothing
stirred in the stillness but the bubble and the crackle of the flames.
Hark!
A harsh rattling sound in the distance—then the hollow beat of horses’
hoofs at full gallop—then the low roar, the all-predominant tumult of
hundreds of human voices clamouring and shouting together. The engine
at last.
The people about me all turned from the fire, and ran eagerly to the
brow of the hill. The old clerk tried to go with the rest, but his
strength was exhausted. I saw him holding by one of the tombstones.
“Save the church!” he cried out faintly, as if the firemen could hear
him already.
“Save the church!”
The only man who never moved was the servant. There he stood, his eyes
still fastened on the flames in a changeless, vacant stare. I spoke to
him, I shook him by the arm. He was past rousing. He only whispered
once more, “Where is he?”
In ten minutes the engine was in position, the well at the back of the
church was feeding it, and the hose was carried to the doorway of the
vestry. If help had been wanted from me I could not have afforded it
now. My energy of will was gone—my strength was exhausted—the turmoil
of my thoughts was fearfully and suddenly stilled, now I knew that he
was dead.
I stood useless and helpless—looking, looking, looking into the burning
room.
I saw the fire slowly conquered. The brightness of the glare faded—the
steam rose in white clouds, and the smouldering heaps of embers showed
red and black through it on the floor. There was a pause—then an
advance all together of the firemen and the police which blocked up
the doorway—then a consultation in low voices—and then two men were
detached from the rest, and sent out of the churchyard through the
crowd. The crowd drew back on either side in dead silence to let them
pass.
After a while a great shudder ran through the people, and the living
lane widened slowly. The men came back along it with a door from one of
the empty houses. They carried it to the vestry and went in. The police
closed again round the doorway, and men stole out from among the crowd
by twos and threes and stood behind them to be the first to see. Others
waited near to be the first to hear. Women and children were among
these last.
The tidings from the vestry began to flow out among the crowd—they
dropped slowly from mouth to mouth till they reached the place where
I was standing. I heard the questions and answers repeated again and
again in low, eager tones all round me.
“Have they found him?” “Yes.”—“Where?” “Against the door, on his
face.”—“Which door?” “The door that goes into the church. His head was
against it—he was down on his face.”—“Is his face burnt?” “No.” “Yes,
it is.” “No, scorched, not burnt—he lay on his face, I tell you.”—“Who
was he? A lord, they say.” “No, not a lord. SIR Something; Sir means
Knight.” “And Baronight, too.” “No.” “Yes, it does.”—“What did he
want in there?” “No good, you may depend on it.”—“Did he do it on
purpose?”—“Burn himself on purpose!”—“I don’t mean himself, I mean the
vestry.”—“Is he dreadful to look at?” “Dreadful!”—“Not about the face,
though?” “No, no, not so much about the face. Don’t anybody know him?”
“There’s a man says he does.”—“Who?” “A servant, they say. But he’s
struck stupid-like, and the police don’t believe him.”—“Don’t anybody
else know who it is?” “Hush——!”
The loud, clear voice of a man in authority silenced the low hum of
talking all round me in an instant.
“Where is the gentleman who tried to save him?” said the voice.
“Here, sir—here he is!” Dozens of eager faces pressed about me—dozens
of eager arms parted the crowd. The man in authority came up to me with
a lantern in his hand.
“This way, sir, if you please,” he said quietly.
I was unable to speak to him, I was unable to resist him when he
took my arm. I tried to say that I had never seen the dead man in
his lifetime—that there was no hope of identifying him by means of a
stranger like me. But the words failed on my lips. I was faint, and
silent, and helpless.
“Do you know him, sir?”
I was standing inside a circle of men. Three of them opposite to me
were holding lanterns low down to the ground. Their eyes, and the eyes
of all the rest, were fixed silently and expectantly on my face. I knew
what was at my feet—I knew why they were holding the lanterns so low to
the ground.
“Can you identify him, sir?”
My eyes dropped slowly. At first I saw nothing under them but a coarse
canvas cloth. The dripping of the rain on it was audible in the
dreadful silence. I looked up, along the cloth, and there at the end,
stark and grim and black, in the yellow light—there was his dead face.
So, for the first and last time, I saw him. So the Visitation of God
ruled it that he and I should meet.