 | XXIII. Edwin Brothertoft |  |
23. XXIII.
Edwin Brothertoft came galloping up to the
flames. Had he won this race, with a life for
its prize?
The maddened mare tore forward, as if she
would leap in among the loud riot there.
Fire everywhere! A mob of arrogant, roaring,
frenzied flames possessed the cellar and the
ground-floor. Each window, so long a peaceful
entrance for sunbeams, now glowed with light
within, or thrust out great cruel blades of fire,
striking at darkness. Fire sheathed the base of
the turret. Agile flames were climbing up its
sides, and little playful flashes seized the creepers
that overhung Lucy's window, and, clinging
to these, peered in through the panes, looking
for such diet as they craved.
The husband turned the corner of the house,
and galloped up to the window, — that window
where an hour ago he had stood gazing at the
proud, hateful face of the woman he loved so
bitterly.
The white horse and its rider looked in at the
glance of horror showed them, as a
draught of air dragged the smoke away.
Opposite, on the wall, the two heads of the
picture were just yielding to the flames around
them. Little buds of flame were sprouting
through the floor, little tendrils wreathing the
doors, and drawing a closer circle about the figure
at their centre. There she sat, as if this
scene was prepared to illuminate her beauty.
A gush of air lifted the smoke like a curtain,
and there she was sitting, her black hair towering
above her pale forehead, her white arms
bound to the chair, and the red light of her
diamond resting upon her white bosom.
The smoke had half suffocated her. But she
was revived by the sudden flood of air, as a
burned door gave way. She turned her head
toward the window, — did her spirit tell her that
the heart she had wounded was there? She
lifted her feeble head as her husband dashed
forward, and it seemed to him that, amid all
the snarling and roaring of the flames, he could
hear her moan, “Help, Edwin! Help!”
The bulbs of flame through the floor shot up
and grew rank, the wreaths of flame reached
out and spread fast as the beautiful tendrils of
a magic vine, the smoke drifted together again,
and hid the room and the figure sitting there.
flame, where long streamers redder than autumn
hung and climbed, through the thick, blinding,
suffocating, baffling smoke, Edwin Brothertoft
sprang in to save his wife.
God help him, for his love is strong!
By this time, from the Tartar frigate and her
consorts, boats'-crews were making for the burning
house. They hoped to handle and furl the
flames, as they would a flapping maintopsail in a
gale. By this time the Manor people were also
hurrying up, with neighborly intent to fling
looking-glasses and crockery from the windows,
and save them.
The Tartars were exhilarated by the splendid
spectacle of fire in revolt. It was indeed a wild
and passionate scene. From every window fingers
of flame beckoned the world to behold it.
And now on Lucy's turret Fire had hoisted its
banner, as in a castle the flag goes up when the
master comes to hold holiday.
The sailors gained the foot of the lawn. This
pageant burst upon them. They sprang forward
with a hurrah. Suddenly the foremost
paused and huddled together. What is it?
A dark figure, bearing some heavy burden,
appeared at the only window of the front where
the flames were not overflowing in full streams
and fountaining upward.
The figure came fighting forward. Fire
shouted, and clutched at it. Smoke poured
around, to bewilder it. The figure — a man's
form — staggered and fell. Inward or outward
— inward into that fiery furnace, or outward
toward the quiet, frosty air of night — the sailors
could not see.
They rushed on more eagerly, but this time
without the cheer.
Only the bravest, with Commodore Hotham
himself at their head, dared face the flames, and
touch the scorching heat to seek for that escaping
figure they had seen.
They found him lying without, under the
great window, — a man, and in his arms a
burned and blackened thing. It might be, they
thought, a woman.
They carried them away where the air was
cool, and the crisp frost was unmelted on the
grass. The man breathed, and moaned. No
one knew his face, masked with black smoke.
With the neighbors, Mrs. Dewitt now came
running up, and joined the group.
“See!” said she, with a shudder. “This was
my mistress. She always wore this diamond on
her neck in the evening. She is dead. No; she
breathes!”
Yes; there was the gem, showing red reflections
of the flames. An hour ago the woman
admiration, saying, “Mark this white neck and
this fair bosom!” Now it made the utter ruin
there more pitiful.
Some one led forward Volante, drooping and
all in a foam. There was evidently some mystery
in this disaster. “Take these burned creatures
to the nearest house,” said Hotham.
“And now, boys, some of you try to save the
stables. Some come with me at the house.
There were more people in it.”
The sailors fought fire. The others carried
the two bodies to Bilsby's farm-house. The
flames showed them their path under the red-leaved
trees of October.
The same ruddy light was guiding Lucy
Brothertoft on her way to what a little while ago
was home.
Long before she reached the spot, the roar and
frenzy of the flames had subsided.
Nothing was left but the ragged walls and
the red ruins of the Manor-House. It had been
punished by fire for the misery and sin it had
sheltered.
A guard of sailors, under a lieutenant, protected
what little property had been saved.
Lucy learned from them how an unknown man
had rescued her mother to die away from the
flames.
She left Voltaire to make some plausible story
of the kidnapping, and to invent a release of
hers from the captors' hands, when the fire they
had accidentally kindled was discovered.
She hastened to help the father she loved and
the mother she pitied so deeply.
Jierck Dewitt followed her to Bilsby's door.
“Go, Jierck!” she said. “It makes me
shudder to see you, and think of this dreadful
harm you have done. Go and tell the whole
to Major Skerrett.”
“Will you speak to my wife, Miss Lucy, and
show her how she is to blame, — how her wrong
sent me wrong? Tell her how she and I are
linked in with ruin here. Perhaps it will help
you to forgive me if you can better her.”
Lucy promised.
She entered the farm-house to encounter her
holy duties with her parents.
Jierck hurried off to meet Major Skerrett, give
him the sorrowful history of the night, and warn
him away from a region that would be alive by
daylight, and bayonetting haystacks and hollow
trees for kidnappers.
The penitent fellow could get no farther on his
return than Cedar Ridge. There he saw the red
embers of the Manor-House watching him from
the edge of the horizon, like the eye of a Cyclops.
He was fascinated, and sank down at the
and fatigue.
Skerrett and Canady, pressing anxiously on,
found Jierck there at sunrise, asleep and half
dead with cold. They roused him, and heard
his story.
A little wreath of smoke alone marked the site
of the Manor-House. Here was the starting-point,
there was the goal of Edwin Brothertoft's
night gallop. It thrilled the Major to hear of
that wild ride, and to fancy he saw the white
horse dashing through the darkness on that
noble errand of mercy.
“Some men would have said, `Curse her! let
her burn! She 's hurt me worse than fire 'll
hurt her,'” says Hendrecus. “Some would have
took the turns of the road, and got to the house
when it was nothing but chimbleys. Some
would have been afeard of being known, and shot
for a rebel. I 've heard say that the Patroon
was n't one of the strong kind; but he 's done a
splendid thing here, and I 'm proud of myself
that I was born on the same soil, and stand a
chance to have some of the same natural grit
into me.”
Nothing further could be done, and it was not
safe to loiter. The three returned over the
Highlands to Putnam's army. And that day,
and for many days, Peter Skerrett meditated on
Manor. He traced with ghastly interest
the different paths by which vengeance converged
upon the guilty woman, and saw with
what careful method her crime had prepared its
own punishment. “God grant,” said he, “that
she may live to know what love and pity did to
save her from the horror of her penalty!”
| XXIII. Edwin Brothertoft | |