his roving frames, and dividing his time between hurried glances
at his workers and a small greasy tract he held in his hand,
entitled 'An Everlasting Task for Arminians.' Turning aside for a
moment to drive some weary operative with a word as rough as a
driver uses to his over-driven horse, he would return to the
'Everlasting Task,' and cull some choice sentence or read some
twisted text used to buttress up the Calvinistic creed. Reading
aloud to himself the words--'Real Christian charity is swallowed
up in the Will of God, nor is it in its nature to extend itself
one step beyond, nor desire one thing contrary to, the glory of
Jehovah. All the charity we possess beyond this may be properly
called fleshly charity'--he lifted his eyes to see two of his
'back-tenters' playing behind the frames, and his real Christian
charity displayed itself in pulling their ears until they tingled
and bled, and in freely using his feet in sundry kicks on their
shins. And yet, wherein was this man to blame? Was he not what
commerce and Calvinism had made him?
The finger of the clock in the factory yard was creeping towards
the hour of eleven, when a smell, ominous to every old factory
hand, was borne into the nostrils of Amos. In a moment his
'Everlasting Task' was thrust into his shirt-breast, and he ran
towards the door from which the stairway of the room descended.
No, he was not mistaken, the smell was the smell of fire, and
scarcely had he gone down a half-dozen steps before he met a man
with blanched face, who barely found breath to say:
'Th' scutchin' room's ablaze.'
Amos carried a cool head. His religion had done one thing for him:
it had made him a fatalist, and fatalists are self-contained.
In a moment he took in the whole situation. He knew that the
stairways would act as a huge draught, up which the flames from
the room below would bellow and blaze. He knew, too, that all way
of escape being cut off below, screaming women and girls, maddened
with fright, would rush to the topmost room of the mill, where
probably they would become a holocaust to commerce. He knew, too,
that those who sought the windows and let themselves down by ropes
and warps would lose their presence of mind, and probably fall
mangled and broken on the flag floor of the yard, sixty or seventy
feet below. All this passed through his mind ere the old watch in
his fob had marked the lapse of five seconds.
In a moment his resolve was taken. He went back to the roving-room
with steady step, and a face as calm as though he were standing in
the light of a summer sun. By the time he reached the room the
machinery was beginning to slow down, and a mad stampede was being
made by the hands towards the door.
Raising his arm, he cried:
'Go back, lasses; there's no gate daan theer. Them of us as 'as to
be brunt will be brunt, and them of us as is to escape will ged
off wi' our lives. Keep cool, lasses; we'll do our best; and
remember 'at th' Almeety rules.'
One thing turned out in the favour of Amos and of his rovers. The
mad rush from below poured into the room under him, and not, as he
expected, into his own, the lower room being one where there was a
better chance of escape. Seeing this, he barred up his own doorway
to prevent the girls and women swarming below, where they would
have made confusion worse confounded. Then he beat out one of the
windows, and proceeded to fix and lower a rope by way of escape.
'Now then, lasses,' said he, having rapidly completed his task,
'th' little uns fust,' and in a moment a girl of twelve was
swinging seventy feet in the air, while a crowd of roaring
humanity below held its breath, and gazed with dilating eyes on
the child who hung between life and death. In a minute more the
spell of silence broke, and a roar, louder than before, told that
the little one had touched earth without injury, save hands all
raw from friction with the rope along which she had slidden.
Child after child followed; then the women were taken in their
turn, and lowered safely into the factory yard.
By the time it came to the turn of Amos, the roar of the fire
sounded like the distant beating of many seas along a rock-bound
coast. The hot breath was ascending, and thin tongues of flame
began to shoot through the floor of the room where he stood. The
pungent smell of burnt cotton stung his nostrils and blinded his
eyes with pain, and the atmosphere was fevered to such a degree
that with difficulty he drew his breath.
His turn had come, but was he the last in the room? Something told
him that he was not, that he must look round and satisfy himself,
otherwise his duty was unfulfilled.
The tongues of flame became fiercer; he saw them running along the
joints of the boarding, and feeding on the oil and waste which had
accumulated there for years. He felt his hour was come. But he was
calm. God ruled. No mistake could be made by the Almighty--nor
could any mistake be made by himself, for was he not under Divine
guidance?
Calmly he walked along the length of the room, stepping aside to
escape the flame, and searching behind each roving-frame in his
walk, as though to assure himself that no one remained unsaved.
Coming to the last frame, he saw the fainting form of one of his
back-tenters, the very child whose ears he had so savagely pulled
but an hour before.
There she lay, with her pallid, pinched face across her arm, the
flames creeping towards her as though greedy to feed themselves on
her young life.
In an instant Amos stepped towards the child and raised her in his
arms, intending to return to the window and so seek escape. He was
too late, however; a wall of fire stretched across the room, and
he felt the floor yielding beneath his feet.
He was still calm and self-contained. He thought of Him who was
said to dwell in devouring flames, and was Himself a consuming
fire. He thought of the three Hebrew youths and the sevenfold-heated
furnace. He thought of the One who was the wall of fire to His
people, and he was not afraid.
On swept the blaze. In a few moments he knew the roof must follow
the fast-consuming floor. Still he was calm. He stepped on to one
of the stone sills to secure a moment's respite, and he cried in
an unfaltering voice, 'The Lord reigneth. Let His will be done.'
Frantic efforts were being made by the crowd below to recall Amos,
who had been seen to disappear from the window into the room. His
name was shouted in wild and entreating cries, and men reared
ladders, only to find them too short, while women threw up their
arms and fell fainting in excitement on the ground.
On swept the flame. Still Amos held his own on the stone ledge.
Grand was his demeanour--erect, despite his seventy years,
clasping with a death grip the fainting child. All around him was
smoke and mingling fire; but the Lord reigned--what He willed was
right; in Him was no darkness at all.
Suddenly he lifted his eyes, and saw above him a manhole that led
into the roof. In a moment he sprang along the frames, and passed
in with his burden, and beat his way through the slates which in
another minute were to fall in with the final collapse of the old
factory.
Creeping along the ridge, he made his way towards the great
chimney-shaft that ran up at one end of the building, and bidding
the girl, who by contact with the air was now conscious, cling to
his neck, the old man laid hold of the lightning-rod, and began
his dangerous descent to the ground.
But he knew no fear; there was no tremor in his muscles; steadily
he descended, feeling that God held his hands, and he told his
Rehoboth friends afterwards, when he recounted his escape, that he
felt the angels were descending with him.
When he reached the ground amid wild and passionate cries of joy,
he disengaged the child from his neck, and wiping his face with
the sleeve of his shirt, said:
'The Lord's will be done.'
Dr. Hale, who was standing by the side of Mr. Penrose, and who
heard the saying of old Amos, turned and said:
'Calvinism grows strong men, does it not?'
'Yi, doctor, yo're reet,' exclaimed old Joseph; 'theer's no
stonning agen God's will.'
V.
WINTER SKETCHES.
1. THE CANDLE OF THE LORD.
2. THE TWO MOTHERS.
3. THE SNOW CRADLE.
I.
THE CANDLE OF THE LORD.
Through the summer months the old Bridge Factory stood in ruins;
the only part that remained intact being the tall chimney-shaft,
down which Amos Entwistle had brought the fainting child from out
the flames. The days were long and the weather warm, and the
inhabitants of Rehoboth spent the sunny hours in wandering over the
moors, never dreaming of hard times and the closing year. A few of
the more frugal and thrifty families had secured employment in a
neighbouring valley, returning home at the week end. The many,
however, awaited the rebuilding of the mill and the recommencement
of work at their old haunt. But when the autumn set in chill and
drear, and the October rains swept the trees and soaked the
grass--when damp airs hung over the moors morning by morning, and
returned to spread their chill canopy at eventide--faces began to
wear an anxious look, and hearts lost the buoyancy of the idle
summer hours.
There is always desolation in the late autumn on the moors. The
great hills lose their bold contours, now dying away in a cold
gray of sky, through which a blurred sun sheds his watery ray;
while the bracken, with its beaten fronds, and the heather with
its disenchanted bloom, change the gorgeous carpet of colour into
wastes and wilds of cheerless expanse. The wind sobs as though
conscious of the coming winter's stress--sad with its prophecy of
want, and cold, and decay. Little rivulets that ran gleaming like
silver threads--the Pactolian streams of childhood's home and
lover's whisperings--now swell and deepen and complain, as though
angry with the burdens of the falling clouds. Bared branches and
low-browed eaves weep with the darkened and lowering sky, and
withered leaves beat piteously at the cottage windows they once
shadowed with their greenery, or lie limp and clayey on the
roadside and the path. Then, in the silent night, there falls the
first rime, and in the morning is seen the hoary covering that
tells of the year's ageing and declining days. At the corner of
the village street the hoarse cough is heard, and around the
hearth the children gather closely, no longer sporting amid the
flowers, or peopling the cloughs with fairy homes. A dispiriting
hand tones down the great orchestra of Nature, and all her music
is set to a minor key, her 'Jubilate' becoming a threnody--a great
preludious sob.
It was in autumn hours such as these--and only too well known in
Rehoboth--that old Mr. Morell used to discourse on the fading
leaf, and tell of a harvest past and a summer ended, and bid his
flock so number their days that they might apply their hearts unto
wisdom. It was now, too, that the dark procession used to creep
more frequently up the winding path to the Rehoboth grave-yard,
and the heavy soil open oftener beneath old Joseph's spade, and
the voice of the minister in deeper and more measured tones repeat
the words, 'We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain
we can carry nothing out.' It was now also that the feeble and the
aged shunned the darkening shadows of the streets, and crept and
cowered over the kindling hearth in the sheltered home. In
Rehoboth October and November were ever drear; and now that the
old Bridge Factory was in ruins, and work scarce and food scant,
the minds of the people were overcast with what threatened to be
the winter of a discontent.
On an afternoon in mid-November, Mr. Penrose forsook his study for
what he hoped might be an exhilarating walk across the gloomy
moors. The snow--the first snow--was beginning to descend, gently
and lazily, in pure, feathery flakes, remaining on earth for a
moment, and then merging its crystals into the moisture that lay
along the village street.
Turning a corner, he met Dr. Hale, who, after a hearty greeting,
said:
'What is this I hear about your resignation, Mr. Penrose?'
'I don't know what you've heard, doctor, but I am resigning.'
'Nonsense! Running away from ignorance, eh? What would you say if
I ran away from disease?'
'Canst thou minister to a mind diseased?' was Mr. Penrose's sharp
retort.
'No, I cannot. But you can, and it's your duty to do so.'
'You're mistaken, doctor. I cannot go to the root of the moral
disease of Rehoboth. If it were drink, or profligacy, or greed, I
might; but self-righteousness beat Jesus, and no wonder it beats
me.'
Taking Mr. Penrose by the arm, Dr. Hale said:
'You see that falling snow. Why does it disappear as soon as it
touches earth?'
'Because the earth is higher in temperature than the snow, and
therefore melts it,' replied the young man, wondering at the
sudden change in the conversation.
'And if it keeps on falling for another hour, why will it cease to
disappear? Why will it remain?' continued the doctor.
'Because its constant falling will so cool the earth that the
earth will no longer melt it,' said Mr. Penrose, growing impatient
with his examination in the rudiments of science.
'Well said, my friend. And therein lies a parable. You think your
teaching falls to disappear. No; it falls to prepare. You must
continue to let it fall, and finally it will remain, and lodge
itself in the minds of your people. There, now, I have given you
one of the treasures of the snow. But here's old Moses.
Good-morning, Mr. Fletcher; busy as usual?'
'Yi, doctor, aw'm findin' these clamming fowk a bit o' brass.'
'How's that, Moses?' asked the minister.
'Why, yo' know as weel as aw do, Mr. Penrose. Sin' I yerd yo' talk
abaat Him as gies liberally, I thought aw'd do a bit on mi own
accaant.'
'There, now,' said Dr. Hale, 'the snow is beginning to stay, is it
not?'
As the doctor and Moses said 'Good-day,' the pastor continued his
walk in a brooding mood, scarce lifting his head from the ground,
on which the flakes were falling more thickly and beginning to
remain. Lost in thought, and continuing his way towards the end of
the village, he was startled by a tapping at the window of Abraham
Lord's cottage, and, looking up, he saw Milly's beckoning hand.
Passing up the garden-path and entering the kitchen, he bade the
girl a good-afternoon, and asked her if she were waiting for the
'angel een.'
'Nay,' said Milly; 'I'm baan to be content wi' th' daawn (down)
off their wings to-day.'
'So you call the snow "angels' down," do you?'
'Ey, Mr. Penrose,' cried her mother. 'Hoo's names for everythin'
yo' can think on. Hoo seed a great sunbeam on a bank of white
claads t' other day, and hoo said hoo thought it were God Hissel',
because th' owd Book said as He made th' clouds His chariot.'
'But why do you call the snow "angels' down," Milly?'
'Well, it's i' this way, Mr. Penrose,' replied the girl. 'I've sin
th' birds pool th' daawn off their breasts to line th' nest for
their young uns. And why shouldn't th' angels do th' same for us?
Mi faither says as haa snow is th' earth's lappin', and keeps all
th' seeds warm, and mak's th' land so as it 'll groo. So I thought
happen it wur th' way God feathered aar nest for us. Dun yo' see?
It's nobbud my fancy.'
'And a beautiful fancy, too, Milly.'
And all that waning afternoon, as Mr. Penrose climbed the hills
amid the falling flakes, he thought of Milly's quaint conceit, and
looking round amid the gathering gloom, and seeing the great
stretch of snowy covering that now lay on the undulating sweeps,
he asked himself wherein lay the difference between the vision of
John the Divine when he saw the angels holding the four winds of
heaven, and Milly when she saw the angels giving of their warmth
to earth in falling flakes of snow.
As the darkness deepened, Mr. Penrose--fearless of the storm, and
at home on the wilds--made his way towards a lone farmstead known
as 'Granny Houses,' and so-called because of an old woman who
lived there, and who, by keeping a light in her window on dark
winter nights, guided the colliers to a distant pit across the
moors. She was the quaint product of the hills and of Calvinism,
but shrewd withal, and of a kind heart. Indeed, the young minister
had taken a strong liking to her, and frequently called at her
far-away home.
'Ey, Mr. Penrose, whatever's brought yo aat a neet like this?' she
cried, as the preacher stood white as a ghost in the doorway of
the farmstead. 'Come in and dry yorsel. Yo're just i' time fur
baggin (tea), and there's noan I'm as fain to see as yo'.'
'Thank you, Mrs. Halstead; I'm glad to be here. It's a grand
night.' And looking through the open doorway at the great expanse
of snow-covered moor, he said, 'What a beautiful world God's world
is--is it not?'
'I know noan so mich abaat its beauty, but I know its a fearful
cowd (cold) world to-neet. Shut that dur afore th' kitchen's
filled wi' snow. When yo're as owd as me yo'll noan be marlockin'
i' snow at this time o' neet. What's life to young uns is death to
owd uns, yo' know. But draw up to th' fire. That's reet; naa then,
doff that coite, and hev a soup o' tay. An' haa 'n yo' laft 'em
all daan at Rehoboth? Clammin', I reckon.'
'You're not far from the word, Mrs. Halstead. Many of them don't
know where to-morrow's food and to-morrow's fire is coming from.'
'Nowe, I dare say. Bud if they'd no more sense nor to spend their
brass in th' summer, what can they expect? There's some fo'k think
they can eyt their cake and hev it. But th' Almeety doesn't bake
bread o' that mak'. He helps them as helps theirsels. He gay' five
to th' chap as bed five, and him as bed nobbud one, and did naught
wi' it--why, He tuk it fro' him, didn't He? I'll tell yo' what it
is, Mr. Penrose, there's a deal o' worldly wisdom i' providence.
Naa come, isn't there?'
Mr. Penrose laughed.
'Theer's that Oliver o' Deaf Martha's. Naa, I lay aught he's noan
so mich, wi' his dog-feightin' and poachin'. His missis wur up
here t'other day axin' for some milk for th' childer. An' hoo said
ut everybody wur ooined (punished for want of food) at their house
but Oliver an' th' dog. Theer's awlus enugh for them.'
'Yes, I believe that is so.'
'It wur that dog as welly killed Moses Fletcher, wurnd it?'
'I think it was,' replied Mr. Penrose.
'And haa is owd Moses sin yo' dipped him o'er agen? It 'll tak'
some watter and grace to mak' him ought like, I reckon. But they
tell me he's takken to gien his brass away. It 'll noan dry th'
een o' th' poor fo'k he's made weep, tho'--will it, Mr. Penrose?'
'Perhaps not, Mrs. Halstead; but Moses is an altered man.'
'And noan afore it wur time. But what's that noise in th' yard? It
saands like th' colliers. What con they be doin' aat o' th' pit at
this time? They're noan off the shift afore ten, and it's nobbud
hawve-past six.'
In another moment the door of the cottage was thrown open and a
collier entered, white with falling snow, and breathless. When he
had sufficiently recovered, he said:
'Gronny, little Job Wallwork's getten crushed in th' four-foot,
and it's a'most up wi' him. They're bringin' on him here.'
'Whatever wilto say next, lad? Poor little felley, where's he
getten hurt? On his yed?'
'Nay; he's crushed in his in'ards, and he hasnd spokken sin'.
They're carryin' him on owd Malachi's coite' (coat).
A sound of shuffling feet was heard in the snow, and four men,
holding the ends of a greatcoat, bore the pale-faced, swooning boy
into the glare of Mrs. Halstead's kitchen. His thin features were
drawn, and a clayey hue overspread his face--a hue which, when she
saw with her practised eye, she knew was the shadow of the
destroyer.
'Poor little felley!' she cried; 'and his mother a widder an'
all.'
And then, bending down over the settle whereon they had placed the
mangled lad, she pressed her lips on the pale brow, clammy with
the ooze of death--lips long since forsaken by the early blush of
beauty, yet still warm with the instinct which in all true women
feeds itself with the wasting years. Tears fell from her
eyes--tears that told of unfathomed deeps of motherhood, despite
her threescore years and ten; while with lean and tremulous hand
she combed back the dank masses of hair that lay in clusters about
the boy's pallid face. Her reverence and love thus manifested--a
woman's offering to tortured flesh in the dark chamber of
pain--she unbuckled the leathern strap that clasped the little
collier's breeches to his waist, and, with a touch gentle enough
to carry healing, bared the body, now discoloured and torn, though
still the veined and plastic marble--the flesh-wall of the human
temple, so fearfully and wonderfully made.
The boy lay immobile. Scarce a pulse responded to the old woman's
touch as she placed the palm of her hand over the valve of his
young life. Nor did her fomentations rouse him, as feebler grew
the protest of the heart to the separation of the little soul from
the mangled body. At last the watchers thought the wrench was
over, and Death the lord of life.
Then the clayey hue, so long overshadowing the face, faded away in
the warmth of a returning tide of life, as a gray dawn is suffused
by sunrise. The beat became stronger and more frequent, there was
a movement in the passive limbs, and, opening his eyes dreamily,
then wonderingly, and at last consciously, the lad looked into the
old woman's face and said:
'Gronny!'
'Yi! it's Gronny, lad. And haa doesto feel?'
The boy tried to move, and uttered a feeble cry of pain.
'Lie thee still, lad. Doesto think thaa can ston this?' and the
old woman laid another hot flannel on the boy's body.
At first he winced, and a look of terrible torture passed over his
face. Then he smiled and said:
'Yi! Gronny, aw can bide thee to do ought.'
Mr. Penrose, helpless and silent, stood at the foot of the settle
on which lay the dying boy, the colliers seeking the gloomy
corners of the large kitchen, where in shadow they awaited in rude
fear the death of their little companion. The old woman, cool and
self-possessed, plied her task with a tenderness and skill born of
long years of experience, cheering with words of endearment the
last moments of the sufferer.
The boy's rally was brief, for internal hæmorrhage set in, and
swiftly wrought its fatal work, sweeping the vital tide along
channels through which it no longer returned to the fount of life,
and leaving the weary face with a pallor that overmastered the
flush that awhile before brought a momentary hope. His eyes grew
dim, and the light from the lamp seemed to recede, as though it
feared him, and would elude his gaze. The figures in the room
became mixed and commingled, and took shapes which at times he
failed to recognise. Then a sensation of falling seized him, and
he planted his hands on the cushion of the settle, as though he
would stay his descent.
Looking at Mr. Penrose through a ray of consciousness, he said:
'Th' cage is goin' daan fearfo quick. Pray!'
The old woman caught the word, and, turning to the minister, she
said:
'He wants thee to mak' a prayer.'
Mr. Penrose drew nearer to the boy, and repeated the grand
death-song of the saints: 'Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me,
Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.'
The boy shook his head--for him the words had no meaning. Then,
raising himself, he said:
'Ax God O'meety to leet His candle. I'm baan along th' seam, an'
it's fearfo dark!'
To Mr. Penrose the words were strange, and, turning to the
colliers, he asked them what the boy wanted.
Then Malachi o' the Mount came towards the minister and said:
'Th' lad thinks he's i' th' four-foot seam, and he connot find his
road, it's so dark, and he wants a leet--a candle, yo' know, same
as we use in th' pit. He wants the Almeety to leet him along.'
Still Mr. Penrose was in darkness.
Then the boy turned to old Malachi, and, with a farewell look of
recognition and a last effort of speech, said:
'Malachi, ax Him as is aboon to leet His great candle, and show me
th' road along th' seam. It's some fearsome and dark.'
And Malachi knelt by the side of the lad, and, in broken accents
and rude vernacular, said:
'O God O'meety, little Job's baan along th' four-foot seam, an' he
connot see his gate (way). Leet Thy candle, Lord--Thy great
candle--and mak' it as leet as day for th' lad. Leet it, Lord, and
dunnot put it aat till he geds through to wheere they've no need
o' candles, becose Thaa gies them th' leet o' Thysel.'
The prayer over, every eye was turned to the boy, on whose face
there had broken a great light--a light from above.
II.
THE TWO MOTHERS.