University of Virginia Library

35. CHAPTER XXXV.
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, then 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 grew 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 clouds 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
around 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, he
it for weal or woe, and with a prayer for help, he turned
aside into a little room from which a few rude steps led
up into the 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 be
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 dear 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 master's 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 realize 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,
smouldering ruin.