The White Fire

________________________________________________
Title:     The White Fire
Author: Laura E. Richards [More Titles by Richards]

Three men came to Love the Lord, asking a gift of his white fire, and the gift was not denied. "Take it, keep it, use it!" said Love the Lord; and they answered joyfully, "Yea, Lord, this will we do!"

Then the three fared forth on their way, the old way, and the new way, and the only way; yet they went not together, but each by himself alone.

Presently one came to a dark valley, full of men who groped with their hands, seeking the way, and finding it not, for they had no light; and they moaned, and cried, "Oh! that we had light, to show us the way!"

Then that man answered aloud, "Yea, and there shall be light!"

And he took the fire that was given him of Love the Lord, and made of it a torch, and held it aloft, and it flashed through the darkness like a sword, and showed the way; and he leading, they following, they came safe through that place into the light of day.

The second man went by another path of the way, and it led him over a bleak moor, where the wind blew bitter keen, and the rocks stood like frozen iron; and here were men shivering with cold, huddling together for warmth, yet finding none, for they had no fire. And they moaned, and cried, "Ah! if we had but fire to keep the life in us, for we perish!"

And the man said, "Yea, there shall be fire!"

And he took the fire that he had of Love the Lord, and spread it out, and set faggots to it, and it blazed up broad and bright; and the folk gathered round it, and held out their hands and warmed themselves at it, and forgot the bitter wind.

Now the third man went his way also; and as he went he said to himself, "How shall I keep my fire safe, that no fierce wind blow it out, and no foul vapor stifle it? I know what I will do; I will hide it in my heart, and so no harm can come to it." And he hid the fire in his heart, and carried it so, and went on.

Now by and by those three came to the end of the way, and there waited for them one in white, and his face veiled. He said to the first man, "What of your fire?"

And the man said, "I found folk struggling in darkness, and I made a torch of my fire, and showed them the way; now is it well-nigh wasted, yet still it burns."

And he in white said, "It is well; this fire shall never die."

Then came the second, and of him, too, that one asked, "What of your fire?"

And he said, "I found men shivering, with nought to warm them, and I gave my fire, that they might live, and not die."

And he in white answered again, "It is well; this fire too shall never die."

Then came the third, and answered boldly, and said, "I have brought my fire safe, through peril and through strife; lo, see it here in my heart!"

Then that one in white put aside his veil; and it was Love the Lord himself. "Alas!" he said; "what is this you have done?"

And he opened the man's heart; and inside it was a black char, and white ashes lying in it.

[The end]
Laura E. Richards's short story: White Fire

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN