Faith Gartney's Girlhood Part 36

Faith stretched her arms out, as a child might, wakened in pain and terror. A cry, in which were uttered the fear, the horror, that were now first fully felt, as a possible safety appeared, and the joy, that itself came like a sudden pang, escaped her, piercingly, thrillingly.

Roger Armstrong looked upward as he sprang upon the bridge.

He caught the cry. He saw Faith stand there, in her white dress, that had been wet and blackened in her battling with the fire.

A great soul glance of courage and resolve flashed from his eyes. He reached his uplifted arms toward her, answering hers. He uttered not a word.

"Round! round!" cried Faith. "The door upon the other side!"

Roger Armstrong, leaping to the spot, and Michael Garvin, escaped by the long rope that hung vibrating from his grasp, down the brick wall of the building, met at the staircase door.

"Help me drive that in!" cried the minister.

And the two men threw their stalwart shoulders against the barrier, forcing lock and hinges.

Up the stairs rushed Roger Armstrong.

Answering the crash of the falling door, came another and more fearful crash within.

Gnawed by the fire, the timbers and supports beneath the forward portion of the second floor had given way, and the heavy looms that stood there had gone plunging down. A horrible volume of smoke and steam poured upward, with the flames, from out the chasm, and rushed, resistlessly, everywhere.

Roger Armstrong dashed into the little countingroom. Faith lay there, on the floor. At that fearful crash, that rush of suffocating smoke, she had fallen, senseless. He seized her, frantically, in his arms to bear her down.

"Faith! Faith!" he cried, when she neither spoke nor moved. "My darling!

Are you hurt? Are you killed? Oh, my G.o.d! must there be another?"

Faith did not hear these words, uttered with all the pa.s.sionate agony of a man who would hold the woman he loves to his heart, and defy for her even death.

She came to herself in the open air. She felt herself in his arms. She only heard him say, tenderly and anxiously, in something of his old tone, as her consciousness returned, and he saw it:

"My dear child!"

But she knew then all that had been a mystery to her in herself before.

She knew that she loved Roger Armstrong. That it was not a love of grat.i.tude and reverence, only; but that her very soul was rendered up to him, involuntarily, as a woman renders herself but once. That she would rather have died there, in that flame and smoke, held in his arms--gathered to his heart--than have lived whatever life of ease and pleasantness--aye, even of use--with any other! She knew that her thought, in those terrible moments before he came, had been--not father's or mother's, only; not her young lover, Paul's; but, deepest and mostly, his!

CHAPTER XXIX.

HOME.

"The joy that knows there _is_ a joy-- That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there!

And, patient in its pure repose, Receiveth so the holier share."

Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction.

For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying on; the river fought the fire; the rus.h.i.+ng, exhaustless streams were pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found its work half done.

A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the front, to tell the awful story of the night.

Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her remonstrances, upon spreading above them.

"The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be gone long, nor far away."

The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to have been so long ago.

Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing tumult--exhausted, patient, waiting.

"My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched, and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep!

I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong has told me what you have _done_. You have saved me half my property here--do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?"

"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want you--and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for, when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know yesterday--what I could not answer you then!"

"Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will of G.o.d, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home."

"May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to wrap Faith.

"I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's."

"You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to us to care for you, I think."

"You do--you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly.

And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire; and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or heroines--had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and precaution had warded it all off.

And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct their efforts for his property.

Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger Armstrong first went out.

She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister.

The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke those words out of his restless dream:

"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"

They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them.

Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared.

She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he waked.

"He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to be cared for so!"

Glory--while we have so long been following Faith--had no less been living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that apprehended, that seized ideally--that was denied, so much!

As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself, wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," cl.u.s.tered radiant, and enshrined them in their light.