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Barriers Burned Away, a novel by Edward Payson Roe |
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Chapter 41. Fire! Fire! |
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_ CHAPTER XLI. FIRE! FIRE! "Will Dennis Fleet come forward?" cried Dr. Arten. Very pale, and trembling with excitement, Dennis stepped out before them all. "Take heart, my young friend; I am not about to read your death-warrant," said the doctor, cheerily. "Permit me to present you with this check for two thousand dollars, and express to you what is of more value to the true artist, our esteem and appreciation of your merit. May your brush ever continue to be employed in the presentation of such noble, elevating thoughts." And the good doctor, quite overcome by this unusual flight of eloquence, blew his nose vigorously and wiped from his spectacles the moisture with which his own eyes had bedewed them. Dennis responded with a low bow, and was about to retire; but his few friends, and indeed all who knew him, pressed forward with their congratulations. Foremost among these were the professor and his wife. Tears of delight fairly shone in Mrs. Leonard's eyes as she shook his hand again and again. Many others also trooped up for an introduction, till he was quite bewildered by strange names, and compliments that seemed stranger still. Suddenly a low, well-known voice at his side sent a thrill to his heart and a rush of crimson to his face. "Will Mr. Fleet deign to receive my congratulations also?" He turned and met the deep blue eyes of Christine Ludolph lifted timidly to his. But at once the association that had long been uppermost in regard to her--the memory of her supposed treatment of his mother--flashed across him, and he replied, with cold and almost stately courtesy, "The least praise or notice from Miss Ludolph would be a most unexpected favor." She thought from his manner that he might as well have said "unwelcome favor," and with a sad, disappointed look she turned away. Even in the excitement and triumph of the moment, Dennis was oppressed by the thought that he had not spoken as wisely as he might. Almost abruptly he broke away and escaped to the solitude of his own room. He did not think about his success. The prize lay forgotten in his pocketbook. He sat in his arm-chair and stared apparently at vacancy, but in reality at the picture that he was sure Christine had painted. He went over and over again with the nicest scrutiny all her actions in the gallery, and now reproached himself bitterly for the repelling answer he had given when she spoke to him. He tried to regain his old anger and hardness in view of her wrongs to him and his, but could not. The tell-tale picture, and traces of sorrow and suffering in her face in accord with it, had disarmed him. He said to himself, and half believed, that he was letting his imagination run away with his reason, but could not help it. At last he seized his hat and hastened to the hotel where Mrs. Leonard was staying. She at once launched out into a eulogistic strain descriptive of her enjoyment of the affair. "I never was so proud of Chicago," she exclaimed. "It is the greatest city in the world. Only the other day her streets were prairies. I believe my husband expected to find buffalo and Indians just outside the town. But see! already, by its liberality and attention to art, it begins to vie with some of our oldest cities. But what is the matter? You look so worried." "Oh, nothing," said Dennis, coming out of his troubled, abstracted manner. With her quick intuition, Mrs. Leonard at once divined his thoughts, and said soon after, when her husband's back was turned: "All I can say is, that she was deeply, most deeply affected by your picture, but she said nothing to me, more than to express her admiration. My friend, you had better forget her. They sail for Europe very soon; and, besides, she is not worthy of you." "I only wish I could forget her, and am angry with myself but I cannot," he replied, and soon after said "good-night." Wandering aimlessly through the streets, he almost unconsciously made his way to the north side, where the Ludolph mansion was situated. Then a strong impulse to Go to it came over him, and for the first time since the far-off day when, stunned and wounded by his bitter disappointment, he had gone away apparently to die, he found himself at the familiar place. The gas was burning in Mr. Ludolph's library. He went around on the side street (for the house was on a corner), and a light shone from what he knew to be Christine's studio. She undoubtedly was there. Even such proximity excited him strangely, and in his morbid state he felt that he could almost kiss the feeble rays that shimmered out into the darkened street. In his secret soul he utterly condemned his folly, but promised himself that he would be weak no longer after that one night. The excitements of the day had thrown him off his balance. Suddenly he heard, sweet and clear, though softened by distance and intervening obstacles, the same weird, pathetic ballad that had so moved him when Christine sang it at Le Grand Hotel, on the evening after he had pointed out the fatal defect in her picture. At short intervals, kindred and plaintive songs followed. "There is nothing exultant or hopeful about those strains," he said to himself. "For some reason she is not happy. Oh, that I might have one frank conversation with her and find out the whole truth! But it seems that I might just as well ask for a near look at yonder star that glimmers so distantly. For some reason I cannot believe her so utterly heartless as she has seemed; and then mother has prayed. Can it all end as a miserable dream?" Late at night the music ceased, and the room was darkened. Little dreamed Christine that her plaintive minstrelsy had fallen on so sympathetic an ear, and that the man who seemingly had repelled her slightest acquaintance had shivered long hours in the cold, dark street. So the divine Friend waits and watches, while we, in ignorance and unbelief, pay no heed. Stranger far, He waits and watches when we know, but yet, unrelenting, ignore His presence. With heavy steps, Dennis wearily plodded homeward. He was oppressed by that deep despondency which follows great fatigue and excitement. In the southwest he saw a brilliant light. He heard the alarm-bells, and knew there was a fire, but to have aroused him that night it must have come scorchingly close. He reached his dark little room, threw himself dressed on the couch, and slept till nearly noon of the next day. When he awoke, and realized how the first hours of the Sabbath had passed, he started up much vexed with himself, and after a brief retrospect said: "Such excitements as those of yesterday are little better than a debauch, and I must shun them hereafter. God has blessed and succeeded me, and it is but a poor return I am making. However my unfortunate attachment may end, nothing is gained by moping around in the hours of night. Henceforth let there be an end of such folly." He made a careful toilet and sat down to his Sabbath-school lesson. To his delight he again met Mrs. Leonard, who came to visit her old mission class. She smiled most approvingly, and quoted, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much." He went home with her, and in the evening they all went to church together. He cried unto the Lord for strength and help, and almost lost consciousness of the service in his earnest prayer for true manhood and courage to go forward to what he feared would be a sad and lonely life. And the answer came; for a sense of power and readiness to do God's will, and withal a strange hopefulness, inspired him. Trusting in the Divine strength, he felt that he could meet his future now, whatever it might be. Again the alarm-bells were ringing, and there was a light on the southwest. "There seems to be a fire over there in the direction of my poor German friend's house. You remember Mrs. Bruder. I will go and call on them, I think. At any rate I should call, for it is owing to her husband that I won the prize;" and they parted at the church-door. Christine had left the picture-gallery soon after Dennis's abrupt departure. Her gay friends had tried in vain to rally her, and rather wondered at her manner, but said, "She is so full of moods of late, you can never know what to expect." Her father, with a few indifferent words, left her for his place of business. His hope still was to prevent her meeting Dennis, and to keep up the estrangement that existed. Christine went home and spent the long hours in bitter revery, which at last she summed up by saying, "I have stamped out his love by my folly, and now his words, 'I despise you,' express the whole wretched truth." Then clenching her little hands she added, with livid lips and a look of scorn: "Since I can never help him (and therefore no one) win earthly greatness, I will never be the humble recipient of it from another. Since his second picture cannot be true of my experience, neither shall the first." And she was one to keep such a resolve. The evening was spent, as we know, in singing alone in her studio, this being her favorite, indeed her only way, of giving expression to her feelings. Very late she sought her bed to find but little sleep. The day of rest brought no rest to her, suggested no hope, no sacred privilege of seeking Divine help to bear up under life's burdens. To her it was a relic of superstition, at which she chafed as interfering with the usual routine of affairs. She awoke with a headache, and a long miserable day she found it. Sabbath night she determined to have sleep, and therefore took an opiate and retired early. Mr. Ludolph sat in his library trying to construct some plan by which Christine could be sent to Germany at once. When Dennis reached the neighborhood of the fire he found it much larger than he supposed, and when he entered Harrison Street, near Mrs. Bruder's home, he discovered that only prompt action could save the family. The streets were fast becoming choked with fugitives and teams, and the confusion threatened to develop into panic and wide spread danger. The fire was but a block away when he rushed upstairs to the floor which the Bruders occupied. From the way in which blazing brands were flying he knew that there were was not a moment to spare. He found Mrs. Bruder startled, anxious, but in no way comprehending the situation. "Quick!" cried Dennis. "Wake and dress the children--pack up what you can lay your hands on and carry--you have no time to do anything more." "Ah! mine Gott! vat you mean?" "Do as I say--there's no time to explain. Here, Ernst, help me;" and Dennis snatched up one child and commenced dressing it before it could fairly wake. Ernst took up another and followed his example. Mrs. Bruder, recovering from her bewilderment, hastily gathered a few things together, saying in the meantime, "Surely you don't dink our home burn up?" "Yes, my poor friend, in five minutes more we must all be out of this building." "Oh, den come dis minute! Let me save de schilder;" and, throwing a blanket around the youngest, the frightened woman rushed downstairs, followed by Ernst and his little brother, while Dennis hastened with the last child and the bundle. Their escape was none too prompt, for the blazing embers were falling to such a degree in the direct line of the fire as to render that position very perilous. But though their progress was necessarily slow, from the condition of the streets, the breadth of the fire was not great at this spot, and they soon reached a point to the west and windward that was safe. Putting the family in charge of Ernst, and telling them to continue westward, Dennis rushed back, feeling that many lives depend upon stout hands and brave hearts that night. Moreover he was in that state of mind which made him court rather than shun danger. He had hardly left his humble friends before Mrs. Bruder stopped, put her hand on her heart and cried: "Oh, Ernst! Oh, Gott forgive me! dot I should forget him--your fader's picture. I must go back." "Oh, moder, no! you are more to us than the picture" The woman's eyes were wild and excited, and she cried, vehemently: "Dot picture saved mine Berthold life--yes, more, more, him brought back his artist soul. Vithout him ve vould all be vorse dan dead. I can no live vidout him. Stay here"; and with the speed of the wind the devoted wife rushed back to the burning street, up the stairs, already crackling and blazing, to where the lovely landscape smiled peacefully in the dreadful glare, with its last rich glow of beauty. She tore it from its fastenings, pressed her lips fervently against it, regained the street, but with dress on fire. She staggered forward a few steps in the hot stifling air and smoke, and then fell upon her burden. Spreading her arms over it, to protect it even in death, the mother's heart went out in agony toward her children. "Ah, merciful Gott! take care of dem," she sighed, and the prayer and the spirit that breathed it went up to heaven together. _ |
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