THE FIERY TEST.
Arthur was not at home. From the first he had intended making
Edith a bridal present--a life-sized portrait of Nina, which he
knew she would value more than gifts of gold and silver. He had in
his possession a daguerreotype taken when she was just eighteen,
and sent to him by her father among other things, of which Charlie
Hudson was the bearer. From this he would have a picture painted,
employing the best artist in Boston, and it was upon this business
that he left Grassy Spring the previous day, saying he should
probably be home upon the next evening's train.
Just before Richard arrived at Grassy Spring, however, a telegram
had been received to the effect that Arthur was detained and would
not return until midnight. This Phillis repeated to Richard, who
for an instant stood thinking, and then said to Victor, "I shall
stay. I cannot go back to Collingwood till I have talked with
Arthur. But you may go, I would rather be left alone, and, Victor,
you will undoubtedly think it a foolish fancy, but I must sleep in
Nina's room. There will be something soothing to me in a place so
hallowed by her former presence. Ask old Phillis if I may. Tell
her it is a whim, if you like, but get her consent at all
hazards."
Phillis' consent was easily won, and after Victor was gone,
Richard sat alone in the parlor until nearly eleven, when, feeling
weary, he consented to retire, and Ike led him up the two flights
of stairs into the Den, where he had never been before.
"I do not need your services," he said to the negro, who departed,
having first lighted the gas and turned it on to its fullest
extent out of compliment to the blind man.
Gas was a luxury not quite two years old in Shannondale, and had
been put in Arthur's house just before he left for Florida.
Collingwood being further from the village could not boast of it
yet and consequently Richard was not as much accustomed to it as
he would otherwise have been. On this occasion he did not know
that it was lighted until, as he stood by the dressing bureau, he
felt the hot air in his face. Thinking to extinguish the light by
turning the arm of the fixture just as he remembered having done
some years before, he pushed it back within an inch of the heavy
damask curtain which now shaded the window, and too much absorbed
in his own painful reflections to think of ascertaining whether
the light was out or not, he groped his way to the single bed, and
threw himself upon it, giving way to a paroxysm of grief.
It was strange that one in his frame of mind should sleep, but
nature was at last exhausted, and yielding to the influence of the
peculiar atmosphere slowly pervading the room, he fell away into a
kind of lethargic slumber, while the work of destruction his own
hand had prepared, went silently on around him. First the crimson
curtain turned a yellowish hue, than the scorched threads dropped
apart and the flame crept into the inner lining of cotton, running
swiftly through it until the whole was in a blaze, and the wood-
work of the window, charred and blackened, and bore the deadly
element still onward, but away from the unconscious Richard,
leaving that portion of the room unscathed, and for the present
safe. Along the cornice under the lathing, beneath the eaves they
crept--those little fiery tongues--lapping at each other in
wanton, playfulness, and whispering to the dry old shingles on the
roof above of the mischief they meant to do.
Half an hour went by, and from the three towers of Shannondale the
deep toned bells rang out the watchword of alarm, which the
awakened inhabitants caught up, echoing it from lip to lip until
every street resounded with the fearful cry, "Fire, fire, Grassy
Spring is all on fire."
Then the two engines were brought, from their shelter, and went
rattling through the town and out into the country, a quarter of a
mile away, to where the little forked tongues had grown to a
mammoth size, darting their vicious heads from beneath the
rafters, reaching down to touch the heated panes, hissing defiance
at the people below, and rolling over the doomed building until
billow of flame leaped billow, both licking up in their mad chase
the streams of water poured continually upon them.
Away to the eastward the night express came thundering on, and one
of its passengers, looking from his window, saw the lurid blaze,
just as once before he had seen the bonfire crazy Nina kindled,
and as he watched, a horrible fear grow strong within him,
manifesting itself at last in the wild outcry, "'Tis Grassy
Spring, 'tis Grassy Spring."
Long before the train reached the depot, Arthur St. Claire, had
jumped from the rear car, and was flying across the meadow toward
his burning home, knowing ere he reached it that all was lost.
Timbers were falling, glass was melting, windows were blazing,
while at every step the sparks and cinders whirled in showers
around his head.
And where all this time was Richard? Victor was asking that
question--Victor, just arrived, and followed by the whole
household of Collingwood. They were the last to waken, and they
came with headlong haste; but Victor's longer strides outran them
all, and when Arthur appeared, he was asking frantically for his
master. The negroes in their fright had forgotten him entirely,
and the first words which greeted Arthur were, "Mr. Harrington is
in the building!"
"Where? where?" he shrieked, darting away, and dragging Victor
with him.
"In Nina's room. He would sleep there," Victor answered, and with
another cry of horror, Arthur sprang to the rear of the building,
discovering that the stairs leading to the Den were comparatively
unharmed as yet.
"Who will save him?" he screamed, and he turned toward Victor, who
intuitively drew back from incurring the great peril.
There was no one to volunteer, and Arthur said,
"I will do it myself."
Instantly a hundred voices were raised against it. It were worse
than madness, they said. The fire must have caught in the vicinity
of that room, and Richard was assuredly dead.
"He may not be, and if he is not, I will save him or perish too,"
was Arthur's heroic reply, as he sprang up the long winding
stairs, near which the flames were roaring like some long pent up
volcano.
He reached the door of the Den. It was bolted, but with superhuman
strength he shook it down, staggering backward as the dense cloud
of yellowish smoke rolled over and around him, warning him not to
advance. But Arthur heeded no warning then. By the light which
illumined the entire front of the house, he saw that two sides of
the room were not yet touched; the bed in the recess was unharmed,
but Richard was not there, and a terrible fear crept over Arthur
lest he had perished in his attempt to escape. Suddenly he
remembered Nina's cell, and groping his way through fire and
smoke, he opened the oaken door, involuntarily breathing a prayer
of thanksgiving when he saw the tall form stretched upon the empty
bedstead. He had probably mistaken the way out, and by entering
here, had prolonged his life, for save through the glass
ventilator the smoke could not find entrance to that spot. Arthur
knew that he was living, for the lips moved once and whispered,
"Edith," causing Arthur's brain to reel, and the cold sweat to
start from every pore as he thought for what and for whom he was
saving his rival. Surely in that terrible hour, in Nina's cell,
with death staring him in the face on every side, Arthur St.
Claire atoned for all the past, and by his noble unselfishness
proved how true and brave he was.
Snatching from the nail the heavy sack, he wound it round
Richard's head to shield him from the flames, then recollecting
that on the bed without there was a thick rose blanket, he wrapped
that too around him, and bending himself with might and main, bore
him in his arms across the heated floor and out into the narrow
hall, growing sick and faint when he saw the wall of fire now
rolling steadily up the stairway.
"Oh, must I die!" he groaned, as he leaned panting against the
wall, listening to the roar without, which sounded in his ear like
demons yelling over their prey.
Life looked very fair to the young man then; even life without
Edith was preferable far to a death like this. He was too young to
die and the heart which had said in its bitterness, "there is
nothing worth living for," clung tenaciously to a world which
seemed so fast receding from view.
By leaving Richard there, by stripping him of his covering, and
folding it about himself, he could assuredly leap down those
stairs, and though he reached the bottom a scarred, disfigured
thing, life would be in him yet; but Arthur did not waver, Richard
should share his fate, be it for weal or woe, and with a prayer
for help, he turned aside into a little room from which a few wide
steps led up into the cupola. Heaven surely saved this way for
him, for the fire was not there yet, and he passed in safety to
the roof, where he stood, many dizzy feet from the shouting
multitude, who, hoping he might take advantage of it, were
watching for him to appear, greeting him with many a loud huzza,
and bidding him take courage. The engines had been brought to bear
on this part of the building, subduing the fire to such an extent
that it was barely possible for him to reach the northern
extremity, where, by jumping upon a flat, lower roof, whose
surface was tin, and then walking a beam over a sea of hissing
flame, he could reach the ladder hoisted against the wall. All
this they made him understand, and with but little hope of his
success they watched him breathlessly as he trod the black,
steaming shingles, which crisped the soles of his boots, and
penetrated even to his flesh. He has passed that point in safety,
he leaps upon the wing, staggering, aye, falling with his burden,
and when he struggles to his feet, the red blaze, wheeling in
circles around him, shows where the blood is flowing from a wound
upon the forehead. The batteries of the engine are directed toward
him now, and they saturate his clothes with water, for the most
fearful, most dangerous part is yet to come, the treading that
single beam. Will he do it? Can he do it? Untrammeled he might,
but with that heavy form he hugs so carefully to him, never! So
the crowd decide, and they shout to him, "Leave him; he is dead.
Save yourself, young man;" but the brave Arthur answers, "No," and
half wishes he were blind, so as to shut out the seething vortex
into which one mistep would plunge him. And while he stood there
thus, amid the roaring of the flames, and the din of the
multitude, there floated up to him a girlish voice,
"Shut your eyes, Arthur, make believe you are blind, and maybe you
can walk the beam."
It was Edith. He saw her where she stood, apart from all the rest,
her long black hair unbound just as she sprang from her pillow,
her arms outstretched toward him, and the sight nerved him to the
trial. He looked at her once more, it might be for the last time,
but he would carry the remembrance of that clear face even to
eternity, and with a longing, wistful glance he closed his eyes
and prepared to do her bidding. Then it seemed to him that another
presence than Edith's was around him, another voice than hers was
whispering words of courage, Nina, who went before, guiding his
footsteps, and lightening his load, screening him from the
scorching heat and buoying him up, while he walked the blackened
beam, which shook and bent at every tread, and at last fell with a
crash, but not until the ladder was reached, and a dozen friendly
arms were outstretched for Richard, and for him, too, for sight
and strength had failed him when they were no longer needed. With
countless blessings on the noble young man, they laid him on the
grass at Edith's side, wounded, burned, smoke-stained, and totally
unconscious.
It was well for Richard that the entire household of Collingwood
were there to care for him, for Edith's thoughts were all bestowed
on Arthur. She hardly looked at Richard, but kneeling down by
Arthur, kissed, and pitied, and wept over his poor, raw, bleeding
hands, wiped the blood from the wound on the forehead, thinking
even then how it would be concealed by the brown hair--the hair
all singed and matted, showing how fiercely he had battled for his
life. Many gathered around her as she sat there with his head
pillowed on her lap, and from the anguish written on her face
learned what it was about which the curious villagers had so long
been pondering.
"He must go home with me," Grace Atherton said, "My carriage will
soon be here."
This reminded Edith that she too must act, and beckoning to
Victor, she bade him hasten to Collingwood and see that his
masters room was made comfortable.
This was the first token she had given that she knew of Richard's
presence near her. She had heard them say that he still lived;
that not a hair of his head was singed or a thread of his night
garments harmed, and for this she was glad, but nothing could have
tempted her to leave Arthur, and she sat by him until the arrival
of the carriages which were to convey the still unconscious men to
their respective homes.
At Collingwood, however, her whole attention was given to Richard,
who, as he began to realise what was passing around him, seemed so
much disturbed at having her near him that Victor whispered to
her, "Hadn't you better go out? I think your presence excites
him."
Edith had fancied so too, and wondering much why it should, she
left him and going to her own room, sat down by the window, gazing
sadly across the fields, to where Grassy Spring lay in the morning
sunshine a blackened, mouldering ruin.