She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh"s voice in the mill yard, and then the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it.
It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith"s.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LOCKED IN.
"How idle it is to call certain things G.o.dsends! as if there were anything else in the world."--HARE.
It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, several coincident circ.u.mstances, that apart, would have had no noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation upon some catastrophe or _denouement_ that develops itself therefrom.
Last night, a man--an employee in Mr. Rushleigh"s factory--had been kept awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter--but it has to do with our story.
Last night, also, Faith--Paul"s second letter just received--had lain sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she felt--thus, or so--in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure of her feeling now?
The new wine in the old bottles--the new cloth in the old garment--these, in Faith"s life, were at variance. What satisfied once, satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a seething--a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and torn--wonderingly, helplessly--in the half-comprehended struggle!
So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed her into rest.
She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on--she fell asleep.
How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she awoke.
Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was here alone. That it was night--that n.o.body could know it--that she was locked up here, in the great dreary mill.
She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaze. She took out her watch, and tried to see, by the starlight, the time. The slender black hands upon its golden face were invisible. It ticked--it was going. She knew, by that, it could not be far beyond midnight, at the most. She was chilly, in her white dress, from the night air. She went to the open window, and looked out from it, before she drew it down.
Away, over the fields, and up and down the river, all was dark, solitary.
n.o.body knew it--she was here alone.
She shut the window, softly, afraid of the sounds herself might make.
She opened the double doors from the countingroom, and stood on the outer threshold, and looked into the mill. The heavy looms were still.
They stood like great, dead creatures, smitten in the midst of busy motion. There was an awfulness in being here, the only breathing, moving thing--in darkness--where so lately had been the deafening hum of rolling wheels, and clanking shafts, and flying shuttles, and busy, moving human figures. It was as if the world itself were stopped, and she forgotten on its mighty, silent course.
Should she find her way to the great bell, ring it, and make an alarm?
She thought of this; and then she reasoned with herself that she was hardly so badly off, as to justify her, quite, in doing that. It would rouse the village, it would bring Mr. Rushleigh down, perhaps--it would cause a terrible alarm. And all that she might be spared a few hours longer of loneliness and discomfort. She was safe. It would soon be morning.
The mill would be opened early. She would go back to the sofa, and try to sleep again. n.o.body could be anxious about her. The Rushleighs supposed her to be at Cross Corners. Her aunt would think her detained at Lakeside. It was really no great matter. She would be brave, and quiet.
So she shut the double doors again, and found a coat of Paul"s, or Mr.
Rushleigh"s, in the closet of the countingroom, and lay down upon the sofa, covering herself with that.
For an hour or more, her heart throbbed, her nerves were excited, she could not sleep. But at last she grew calmer, her thought wandered from her actual situation--became indistinct--and slumber held her again, dreamily.
There was another sleeper, also, in the mill whom Faith knew nothing of.
Michael Garvin, the night watchman--the same whose child had been ill the night before--when Faith came out into the loom chamber, had left it but a few minutes, going his silent round within the building, and recording his faithfulness by the half-hour pin upon the watch clock.
Six times he had done this, already. It was half past ten.
He had gone up, now, by the stairs from the weaving room, into the third story. These stairs ascended at the front, from within the chamber.
Michael Garvin went on nearly to the end of the room above--stopped, and looked out at a window. All still, all safe apparently.
He was very tired. What harm in lying down somewhere in a corner, for five minutes? He need not shut his eyes. He rolled his coat up for a pillow, and threw it against the wall beneath the window. The next instant he had stretched his stalwart limbs along the floor, and before ten minutes of his seventh half hour were spent--long before Faith, who thought herself all alone in the great building, had lost consciousness of her strange position--he was fast asleep.
Fast asleep, here, in the third story!
So, since the days of the disciples, men have grown heavy and forgotten their trust. So they have slumbered upon decks, at sea. So sentinels have lain down at picket posts, though they knew the purchase of that hour of rest might be the leaden death!
Faith Gartney dreamed, uneasily.
She thought herself wandering, at night, through the deserted streets of a great city. She seemed to have come from somewhere afar off, and to have no place to go to.
Up and down, through avenues sometimes half familiar, sometimes wholly unknown, she went wearily, without aim, or end, or hope. "Tired! tired!
tired!" she seemed to say to herself. "Nowhere to rest--n.o.body to take care of me!"
Then--city, streets, and houses disappeared; the scenery of her dream rolled away, and opened out, and she was standing on a high, bare cliff, away up in wintry air; threatening rocky avalanches overhanging her--chill winds piercing her--and no pathway visible downward. Still crying out in loneliness and fear. Still with none to comfort or to help.
Standing on the sheer edge of the precipice--behind her, suddenly, a crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, molten stone heaved--huge, brazen, bubbling--spreading wider and wider, like a great earth ulcer, eating in its own brink continually. Up in the air over her, reared a vast, sulphurous canopy of smoke. The narrowing ridge beneath her feet burned--trembled. She hovered between two destructions.
Instantly--in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after which one wakes--she felt a presence--she heard a call--she thought two arms were stretched out toward her--there seemed a safety and a rest near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken--folded, held; smoke, fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she was utterly secure.
So vividly she felt the presence--so warm and sure seemed that love and strength about her--that waking out of such pause of peace, before her senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name--the name of Roger Armstrong.
Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back into her dream.
The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true.
A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window.
There was fire near her!
Could it be among the buildings of the mill?
The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles, another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage and other purposes connected with the business.
Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning smell were pouring?
Or, lay the danger nearer--within these close, contiguous walls?
Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth.
She could not tell.