They carried Mark to the Saxon cottage and laid him on Billy"s bed.
There was no lack of nurses. Aunt Saxon and Christie McMertrie, the Duncannons and Mary Rafferty, Jim too, and Tom. It seemed that everybody claimed the honors. The minister was across the street in the Little House. They dared not move him farther. Of the two the case of the minister was the most hopeless. He had borne the burden of the fall. He had been struck by the falling timbers, his body had been a cover for the younger man. In every way the minister had not saved himself.
The days that followed were full of anxiety. There were a few others more or less injured in the fire, for there had been fearless work, and no one had spared himself. But the two who hung at the point of death for so long were laid on the hearts of the people, because they were dear to almost every one.
Little neighborhood prayer meetings sprang up quietly here and there, beginning at Duncannons. The neighbor on either side would come in and they would just drop down and pray for the minister, and for "that other dear brave brother." Then the Littles heard of it and called in a few friends. One night when both sufferers were at the crisis and there seemed little hope for the minister, Christie McMertrie called in the Raffertys and they were just on the point of kneeling down when Mrs.
Harricutt came to the door. She had been crying. She said she and her husband hadn"t slept a wink the night before, they were so anxious for the minister. Christie looked at her severely, but remembering the commands about loving and forgiving, relented:
"Wull then, come on ben an" pray. Tom, you go call her husband! This is na time fer holdin" grudges. But mind, wumman, if ye coom heer to pray ye must pray with as _mooch fervor_ for the healin" o" _Mark Carter_ as ye do fer the meenister! He"s beloved of the Lord too, an" the meenister nigh give his life for him."
And Mrs. Harricutt put up her ap.r.o.n to her eyes and entered the little haircloth parlor, while Tom, with a wry face went after the elder. The elder proved that underneath all his narrowness and prejudice he had a grain of the real truth, for he prayed with fervor that the Lord would cleanse their hearts from all prejudice and open their minds to see with heavenly vision that they might have power in prayer for the healing of the two men.
So, through the whole little village breaches were healed, and a more loving feeling prevailed because the bond of anxiety and love held them all together and drew them nearer to their G.o.d.
At last the day came when Mark, struggling up out of the fiery pit of pain, was able to remember.
Pain, fire, flame, choking gases, smoke, remorse, despair! It was all vague at first, but out of it came the memory slowly. There had been a fire. He had gone back up the ladder after Mrs. Blimm"s baby. He remembered groping for the child in the smoke filled room, and bringing it blindly through the hall and back to the window where the ladder was, but that room had all been in flames. He had wished for a wet cloth across his face. He could feel again the licking of the fire as he pa.s.sed the doorway. A great weight had been on his chest. His heart seemed bursting. His head had reeled, and he had come to the window just in time. Some one had taken the child--was it Billy?--or he would have fallen. He _did_ fall. The memory pieced itself out bit by bit. He remembered thinking that he had entered the City of Fire literally at last, "the minarets" already he seemed to descry "gleaming vermilion as if they from the fire had issued." It was curious how those old words from Dante had clung in his memory. "Eternal fire that inward burns." He thought he was feeling now in his body what his soul had experienced for long months past. It was the natural ending, the thing he had known he was coming to all along, the road of remorse and despair. A fire that goes no more out! And this would last forever now! Then, someone, some strong arm had lifted him--G.o.d"s air swept in--and for an instant there seemed hope. But only that little breath of respite and there came a cry like myriads of lost souls. They were falling, falling, down through fire, with fire above, below, around, everywhere. Down, down,--an abysmal eternity of fire, till his seared soul writhed from his tortured body, and stood aside looking on at himself.
There, there he lay, the Mark Carter that had started with life so fair, friends, prospects, so proud that he was a man, that he could conquer and be brave--so blest with opening life, and heaven"s high call! And then--in one day--he had sinned and lost it all, and there he lay, a white upturned face. That was himself, lying there with face illumined by the fire, and men would call him dead! But he would not be dead! He would be living on with that inward fire, gnawing at his vitals, telling him continually what he might have been, and showing him what high heaven was that he had had, and lost. He saw it now. He had deliberately thrown away that heaven that had been his. He saw that h.e.l.l was h.e.l.l because he made it so, it was not G.o.d that put him there, but he had chosen there to go. And still the fire burned on and scorched his poor soul back into the body to be tortured more. The long weeks upon that bed seemed like an infinite s.p.a.ce of burning rosy, oily flames poured upward from a lake of fire, down through which he had been falling in constant and increasing agony.
And now at last he seemed to be flung upon this peaceful sh.o.r.e where things were cool and soothing for a brief respite, that he might look off at where he had been floating on that molten lake of fire, and understand it all before he was flung back. And it was all so very real.
With his eyes still closed he could hear the rushing of the flames that still seemed ascending in columns out a little way from sh.o.r.e, he could see through his eyelids the rosy hue of livid waters--of course it was all a hallucination, and he was coming to himself, but he had a feeling that when he was fully awake it would be even more terrible than now.
Two grim figures, Remorse and Despair, seemed waiting at either hand above his bed to companion him again when he could get more strength to recognize them. And so he lay thus between life and death, and faced what he had done. Hours and hours he faced it, when they knew not if he was conscious yet, going over and over again those sins which he knew had been the beginning of all his walk away from Hope. On through the night and into the next morning he lay thus, sometimes drowsing, but most of the time alert and silent.
It was a bright and sparkling morning. There was a tang of winter in the air. The leaves were gone from the apple trees at the window and the bare branches tapped against the water spout like children playing with a rattle. A dog barked joyously, and a boy on the street shouted out to another--_Oh, to be a boy once more!_ And suddenly Mark knew Billy was sitting there. He opened his eyes and smiled: There were bandages around his face, but he smiled stiffly, and Billy knew he was smiling.
"Kid," he said hoa.r.s.ely from out the bandages, "This is G.o.d"s world."
It seemed to be a great thought that he had been all this time grasping, and had to utter.
"Sure!" said Billy in a low happy growl.
A long time after this, it might have been the next day, he wasn"t sure, or perhaps only a few minutes, he came at another truth:
"Kid, you can"t get away from G.o.d--even when you try."
"I"ll say not," said Billy.
"But--when you"ve sinned--!" speculatively.
"You gotta get it off yer chest."
"You mean--confess?"
"Sure thing. Miss Lynn tells us in Sunday School about a fella in the Bible got downta eatin" with the pigs in a far country, an" when he come to himself he thought about his father"s servants, an" he said "I"ll get up and beat it home an" say I"m sorry!""
"I know," said Mark, and was still the rest of the day. But the next morning he asked the doctor how soon he might get up. This was the first real indication that Mark was on the mend, and the doctor smiled with satisfaction. He meant to take off some of the bandages that morning.
That afternoon with his head unswathed, Mark began to ask questions.
Before that he had seemed to take everything for granted:
"Billy, where"s the minister?" For Billy have never left his idol"s side except when Aunt Saxon needed him to help.
"Oh, he"s up to tha parsonage," responded Billy carelessly.
"But why hasn"t he been to see me, Kid?"
"Why--he--hasn"t been feelin" very good." Billy"s voice was brisk as if it wasn"t a matter of much moment.
Mark turned his thoughtful gray eyes steadily on Billy:
"Now, look here, Kid, I"m well, and there"s no further need to camouflage. Billy, is the minister dead?"
"Not on yer tin type, he ain"t dead!"
"Well, is he hurt?"
"Well, _some_," Billy admitted cheerfully.
"Kid, look me in the eye."
Billy raised a saucy eye as well masked as Mark"s own could be on occasion.
"Kid, how much is he hurt! _Tell me the truth!_ If you don"t I"ll get right up and go and see."
"I"ll tell the world, you won"t!" said Billy rising lazily and taking a gentle menacing step toward the bed.
"Kid!"
"Well--he"s some hurt--but he"s getting along fine now. He"ll be aw"wright."
"How"d he get hurt?"
"Oh, the fire, same"s you."
"How?" insisted Mark.
"Oh, he went up again after a fella when it was too late--"
"Billy, was it me?"
"Ugh huh!" nodded Billy.
Mark was so still that Billy was frightened. When he looked up worried he saw that a great tear had escaped out from under the lashes which were growing nicely now, and had rolled down Mark"s cheek. _Mark crying!_
In consternation Billy knelt beside the bed:
"Aw Gee! Mark, now don"t you feel like that. He"s gettin" all right now they hope, an" Gee! He was _great!_ You oughtta seen him!"
"Tell me about it," said Mark huskily.