Species again, it is said, may be developed by way of selection, as the florist proves in regard to flowers, and the shepherd or herdsman in regard to sheep and cattle. That new varieties in the lower orders of creation may be attained by some sort of development is not denied, but as yet it is not proved that any new species is ever so obtained. Moreover, facts would seem to establish that, at least in the case of domestic animals, horses, cattle, and sheep, the new varieties do not become species and are not self-perpetuating. Experiments in what is called crossing the breed have proved that, unless the crossing is frequently renewed, the variety in a very few generations runs out. There is a perpetual tendency of each original type to gain the ascendency, and of the stronger to eliminate the others. Cattle-breeders now do not rely on crossing, but seek to improve their stock by selecting the best breed they know, and improving it by improved care and nourishment. The different varieties of men may be, perhaps, improved in their physique by selection, as was attempted in the institutions of Lycurgus; but, as the moral and intellectual nature predominates in man and is his characteristic, all conclusions as to him drawn from the lower orders of creation, even in his physical constitution, are suspicious and always to be accepted with extreme caution. The church has defined what no physiologist has disproved, thatanima est forma corporis. The soul is the informing or vital principle of the body, which modifies all its actions, and enables it to resist, at least to some extent, the chemical and other natural laws which act on animals, plants, and unorganized matter. The physiological and medical theories based on chemistry, which were for a time in vogue and are not yet wholly abandoned, contain at best only a modicum of truth, and can never be safely followed, for in the life of man there is at work a subtiler power than a chemical or any other physical agent. We do not deny that man is through his body related to the material world, or that many of the laws of that world, mineral, vegetable, and animal, are in some degree applicable to him; but, as far as science has yet proceeded, they are so only with many limitations and modifications which the physician—we use the word in its etymological as well as in its conventional sense—can seldom determine. Themoraleevery physician knows has an immense power over thephysique. The higher the morale, the greater the power of the physical system to resist physical laws, to endure fatigue, to bear up against and even to throw off disease. Physical disease is often generated by moral depression, and not seldom thrown off by moral exhilaration. What is called strength of will at times seems not only to subject disease to its control, but to hold death itself at bay. In armies the officer, with more care, more labor, more hardship, and less food and sleep, will survive the common soldier, vastly his superior as to his mere physical constitution. These facts and innumerable others like them justify a strong protest against the too common practice of applying to man without any reservation the laws which we observe in the lower orders of creation, and arguing from what is true of them what must be true of him. Tear off the claw of a lobster, and a new one will be pushed out; cut the polypus in pieces, and each piece becomes a perfect polypus, at least so we are told, for we have not ourselves made or seen the experiment. But nothing of the sort is true of man, nor even of the higher classes of animals in which organic life is more complex.We place little confidence in conclusions drawn from the assumed analogies between man and animals, and even the development of species in them by selection or otherwise, if proved, would not prove to us the possibility of a like development in him. We must see a monkey by development grow into a man before we can believe it.
But why, even in the case of animals that can be propagated only by the union of male and female, we should suppose the necessity of duplicating the parents of the species is more than we are able to understand. The individuals of the species could go where man could go. Suppose we find a species of fish in a North American lake, and the same species in a European or Asiatic lake which has no water communication with it, can you say the two lakes have never been in communication, you who claim that the earth has existed for millions of ages? Much of what is now land was once covered with water, and much now covered with water it is probable was once land inhabited by plants, animals, and men. Facts even indicate that the part of the earth now under the Arctic and Antarctic circles once lay nearer to the Equator, if not under it, and that what are now mountains were once islands dotting the surface of the ocean. No inductions which exclude these probabilities or indications are scientific, or can be accepted as conclusive.
Take, then, all the facts on which the naturalists support their hypotheses, they establish nothing against faith. The facts really established either favor faith or are perfectly compatible with it; and if any are alleged that seem to militate against it, they are either not proved to be facts, or their true character is not fully ascertained, and no conclusion from them can be taken as really scientific. We do not pretend that the natural sciences, as such, tend to establish the truth of revelation, and we think some over-zealous apologists of the faith go further in this respect than they should. The sciences deal with facts and causes of the secondary order; and it is very certain that one may determine the quality of an acorn as food for swine without considering the first cause of the oak that bore it. A man may ascertain the properties of steam and apply it to impel various kinds of machinery, without giving any direct argument in favor of the unity and Adamic origin of the race. The atheist may be a good geometrician; but, if there were no God, there could be neither geometry nor an atheist to study it. All we contend is, that the facts with which science deals are none of them shown to contradict faith or to warrant any conclusions incompatible with it.
Hence it may be assumed that, while the sciences remain in their own order of facts, they neither aid faith nor impugn it, for faith deals with a higher order of facts, and moves in a superior plane. The order of facts with which the sciences deal no doubt depends on the order revealed by faith; and no doubt the particular sciences should be connected with science or the explanation and application of the ideal formula or first principles, what we call philosophy, as this formula in turn is connected with the faith; but it does not lie within the province of the particular sciences as such to show this dependence or this connection, and oursavansinvariably blunder whenever they attempt to do it, or to rise from the special to the general, the particular to the universal, or from the sciences to faith. Here is where they err.What they allege that transcends the particular order of facts with which the sciences deal is only theory, hypothesis, conjecture, imagination, or fancy, and has not the slightest scientific value, and can warrant no conclusions either for or against faith. There is no logical ascent from the particular to the universal, unless there has been first a descent from the universal to the particular. Jacob saw, on the ladder reaching from heaven to earth, the angels of God descending and ascending, not ascending and descending. There must be a descent from the highest to the lowest before there can be an ascent from the lowest to the highest. God becomes man that man may become God. The sciences all deal with particulars and cannot of themselves rise above particulars, and from them universal science is not obtainable.
He who starts from revelation, which includes the principles of universal science, can, no doubt, find all nature harmonizing with faith, and all the sciences bearing witness to its truth, for he has the key to their real and higher sense; but he who starts with the particular only can never rise above the particular, and hence he finds in the particulars, or the nature to which he is restricted, no immaterial and immortal soul, and no God, creator, and upholder of the universe. His generalizations are only classifications of facts, with no intuition of their relation to an order above themselves; his universal is the particular, and he sees in the plane of his vision no steps by which to ascend to science, far less to faith. Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte both understood well the necessity of subordinating all the sciences to a general principle or law, and of integrating them in a universal science; but starting with the special sciences themselves, they could never attain to a universal science, or a science that accepted, generalized, and explained them all, and hence each ended in atheism, or, what is the same thing, the divinization of humanity. The positivists really recognize only particulars, and only particulars in the material order, the only order the sciences, distinguished from philosophy and revelation, do or can deal with. Alexander von Humboldt had, probably, no superior in the sciences, and he has given theirrésuméin hisCosmos; but, if we recollect aright, the word God does not once appear in that work, and yet, except when he ventures to theorize beyond the order of facts on which the sciences immediately rest, there is little in that work that an orthodox Christian need deny. Herbert Spencer, really a man of ability, who disclaims being a follower of Auguste Comte or a positivist, excludes from theknowable, principles and causes, all except sensible phenomena; and although wrong in view of a higher philosophy than can be obtained by induction from the sensible or particular facts, yet he is not wrong in contending that the sciences cannot of themselves rise above the particular and the phenomenal.
Hence we do not agree with those Christian apologists who tell us that the tendency of the sciences is to corroborate the doctrines of revelation. They no more tend of themselves to corroborate revelation than they do to impair it. They who press them into the cause of infidelity, and hence conclude that science explodes faith, mistake their reach, for we can no more conclude from them against faith than we can in favor of faith. The fact is, the sciences are not science, and lie quite below the sphere of both science and faith. When arrayed against either, their authority is null.Hence we conclude,á priori, against them when they presume to impugn the principles of science as expressed in the ideal formula, or against faith which is, considered in itself objectively, no less certain than the formula itself; and we have shown,à posteriori, by descending to the particulars, that the sciences present no facts that impugn revelation or contradict the teachings of faith. The conclusions of thesavansagainst the Christian dogmas are no logical deductions or inductions from any facts or particulars in their possession, and therefore, however they may carry away sciolists, or the half-learned, or little minds, greedy of novelties, they are really of no scientific account.
All that faith demands of the sciences as such is their silence. She does not demand their support, she only demands that they keep in their own order, that the cobbler should stick to his last,ne sutor ultra crepidam. Faith herself is in the supernatural order, and proceeds from the same source as nature herself; it presupposes science indeed, and elevates and confirms it, but no more depends upon it than the creator depends on the creature. The highest science needs faith to complete it, and in all probability never could have been attained to without revelation; but neither science nor the sciences, however they may need revelation, could ever, without revelation, have risen to the conception of a divine and supernatural revelation. It is idle, then, to suppose that without revelation we could find by the sciences the demonstration or evidence of revelation. Lalande was right when he said he had never seen God at the end of his telescope, and his assertion should weigh with all natural theologians, so-called, who attempt to prove the existence of God by way of induction from the facts which naturalists observe and analyze; but he was wrong and grossly illogical when he concluded from that fact, with the fool of the Bible, there is no God, as wrong as those chemists are who conclude against the real presence in holy eucharist, because by their profane analysis of the consecrated host they find in it the properties of bread. The most searching chemical analysis cannot go beyond the visible or sensible properties of the subject analyzed, and the sensible properties of the bread and wine nobody pretends are changed in transubstantiation. None of the revealed dogmas are either provable or disprovable by any empirical science, for they all lie in the supernatural order, above the reach of natural science, and while they control all the empirical sciences they can be controlled by none.
But when we have revelation and with it, consciously or unconsciously, the ideal formula, which gives us the principles of all science and of all things, and descend from the higher to the lower, the case is essentially different. We then find all the sciences so far as based on facts, and all the observable facts or phenomena of nature, moral, intellectual, or physical, both illustrating and confirming the truths of revelation and the mysteries of faith. We then approach nature from the point of view of the Creator, read nature by the divine light of revelation, and study it from above, not from below; we then follow the real order of things, proceed from principles to facts, from the cause to the effect, from the universal to the particular, and are, after having thus descended from heaven to earth, able to reascend from earth to heaven. In this way we can see all nature joining in one to show forth the being and glory of God, and to hymn his praise.This method of studying nature from high to low by the light of first principles and of divine revelation enables us to press all the sciences into the service of faith, to unite them in a common principle, and do what the Saint-Simonians and positivists cannot do, integrate them in a general or universal science, bring the whole intellectual life of man, as we showed in our article on Rome or Reason, into unison with faith and the real life and order of things, leaving to rend our bosoms only that moral struggle symbolized by Rome and the World, of which we have heretofore treated at length.
But this can never be done by induction from the facts observed and analyzed by the several empirical or inductive sciences. We think we have shown that the pretension, that these sciences have set aside any of the doctrines of Christianity, or impaired the faith, except in feeble and uninstructed minds, is unfounded; we think we have also shown that they not only have not, but cannot do it, because they lie in a region too low to establish anything against revelation. Yet as the sciences are insufficient, while restricted to their proper sphere, to satisfy the demand of reason for apodictic principles, for unity and universality, there is a perpetual tendency in the men devoted exclusively to their culture to draw from them conclusions which are unwarranted, illogical, and antagonistic both to philosophy and to faith. Against this tendency, perhaps never more strongly manifested than at this moment, there is in natural science alone no sufficient safeguard, and consequently we need the supernatural light of revelation to protect both faith and science itself. With the loss of the light of revelation we lose, in fact, the ideal formula, or the light of philosophy; and with the light of philosophy, we lose both science and the sciences, and retain only dry facts which signify nothing, or baseless theories and wild conjectures, which, when substituted for real science, are far worse than nothing.
"No, no, Tom; that is out of the question. I can't afford to go away just now. I am getting into a fine practice; the courts open in ten days; and besides, I am in the midst of an essay on the Law of Contracts which I promised for the next number of a certain law magazine. Your prescription is a very pleasant one; but really I can't take it. You must give me a good dose of medicine instead."
"I tell you what it is, Franklin, I don't let my patients dictate to me in that style. You have been fool enough to throw yourself into a nervous fever by working in this nasty den all summer, instead of taking a vacation-run to the country as you ought to have done; and now, if you don't follow my directions, I swear I won't cure you! Go off to some quiet farm-house for a week or two, and, if your essay on contracts weighs upon your mind, take the stupid stuff with you. I'll risk your working much at it after you get within scent of the fields."
I could not stand out very long against the bluff orders of my friend and physician Tom Bowlder. I knew, too, that he was right. I had overtasked myself. I had been dangerously ill; and, eager as I was to get on with my work, I could not help feeling that rest and change were absolutely necessary for me. So I packed my portmanteau, not forgetting my precious essay and a liberal supply of writing-paper, and the next morning saw me on the way to Meadowbrook.
It was a quiet, sleepy little village, nestling at the foot of a beautifully wooded ridge, and looking out from its shelter, across a slope of green fields, to a little stream which ran purling over the stones a quarter of a mile distant. Majestic old elm-trees shaded the grassy roads and swung their branches over the roofs of the trim little cottages. There was only one house in the place which pretended to be anything better than a cottage, and that was a rather stately villa, a good hundred years old at least, which stood a little way out of the village, surrounded with trees, and shut in from the public gaze by an enormous hawthorn hedge which ran around the extensive grounds. Meadowbrook House, or "the house," as it was generally called by the villagers, was the property of an old maiden lady named Forsythe, the daughter of a retired merchant who long years ago had chosen this quiet spot as a retreat for his old age. Mr. Forsythe was a Catholic, and one of his first actions after removing to Meadowbrook was to build the pretty stone church in the main street of the village, and to pledge a certain sum annually from his ample income for the support of the priest. When, after a long life of usefulness, he died and was buried by the side of his wife, leaving all his property to his daughter, who had already long passed the period of youth, the generosity of Miss Forsythe continued to supply what the poor little Catholic congregation was unable to give, and the excellent spinster was still the mainstay of the church. Poor Father James, an old man now of nearly seventy, would have fared ill but for her assistance.
So much I learned in an after-supper chat with my landlady on the night of my arrival. I cannot say that I was much engrossed at the time by the good woman's garrulous narrative, but after-events were to give me a deep interest in Meadowbrook House and in everything connected with it. I had taken lodgings in the village inn, a neat, quiet, respectable establishment, where there were few guests except the villagers who used to drop in of an evening to enjoy a little gossip and a pipe, and with whom, after a days' ramble, I used often to sit and smoke my cigar. I led an idle but most delicious life during my ten day's holiday. I ranged through the woods, with my gun on my shoulder, bringing home now and then a bird or so, but caring in reality more for the walk than the shooting. I whipped the brook for trout. I searched the fields for botanical specimens. I wandered about with a volume of Tennyson or Buchanan in my pocket, stopping at times to lie down and read under the trees. I did almost everything, in fact, except work at my essay, which remained in the portfolio where I had originally packed it.
One sunny afternoon I was dozing on my back in the shade of an apple orchard, when a strain of music was borne to my ears, beginning like the distant hum of bees, and gradually swelling on the air with slow and majestic cadences. I had never heard such music in Meadowbrook before.Curious to know whence it came, I followed the sound, and was not long in discovering that some practised hand was touching the wheezy little organ in the village church. Not the same hand which was accustomed painfully to struggle with the keys there on Sunday, and wring from them broken and doleful sounds to the distress of all nervous listeners. The person who was playing now had the touch of a master; and as the plaintive phrases of theAgnus Deifrom Mozart's First Mass broke upon the solitude of the church, the rickety organ seemed infused with a new spirit. I could not have believed that so much pathos and such exquisite delicacy of tone could be drawn from the wretched instrument whose laborious whistling and puffing had set my teeth on edge the previous Sunday. I sat down in a pew under the gallery, and listened. It was not until twilight approached that the playing ceased. I heard the organ closed; the player was silent for a few moments; "He is saying a prayer," thought I; and then a soft step began to descend the stairs. Thinking it possible the performer might feel annoyed at perceiving a stranger in the church, I sat quietly in my place, confident that the growing darkness and the shelter of one of the pillars would screen me from observation. I could see very well, however, though I could not be seen, and my surprise was great when a slender female figure issued from the gallery staircase, and came within the light of the open street door. She was young—not more than eighteen, I should think—with a face of rare beauty, a pretty form, a light and graceful carriage, and the unmistakable air of a gentlewoman. Small, regular features, light brown eyes, cheeks like a peach, blooming with health, a profusion of dark hair, and an expression of remarkable simplicity and sweetness made up a picture of loveliness such as I had never seen before. She wore a fascinating little round hat, and when I first caught sight of her was just drawing on her gloves, and I could see that her hands were small and shapely. She bent her knee as she passed before the altar, and when she went out into the street the church seemed suddenly to have grown darker. My first impulse was to follow her; but I stopped, feeling that it would be an intrusion, and trusting that she would return the next day, if she supposed herself to be unobserved. So I kept still until she had been gone several minutes, and when I left the church she was nowhere to be seen.
I determined to ask my landlady about the fair musician, and that evening, when worthy Mrs. Brown brought me my supper, I detained her a few minutes in conversation—an amusement to which she was in noway adverse.
"It's been an elegant day, hasn't it, now, Mr. Franklin?" said the old woman, as she placed on the table the smoking rasher of ham and the pile of buttered toast; "and it's plain to see what a world of good this tramping about the country is doing you. I wouldn't say you were over-strong yet; but, Lord bless me! when you first came here, you were little better than a ghost. Well, well, sir, and I hope you won't find our little village too dull for you!"
"Dull! Mrs. Brown. Not a bit of it. I wish I could stay here a year. By the way, who is it plays the organ so beautifully in Meadowbrook church? I heard the music, and stopped awhile to listen."
"Plays the organ, sir? Well, you know there's Mr. Thrasher, the schoolmaster; he's the organist on Sundays, and very like you heard him practising—though why he should be out of school to-day, and this not a holiday—"
"Mr. Thrasher, Mrs. Brown, thumps on the organ as if he was thumping his pupils, and his singers scream as if they felt the blows. This was not Mr. Thrasher. It was a young lady!"
"Well, sir, I never knowed of no young lady playing the organ except it was Betty Cox, the butcher's daughter. They do say she has a wonderful talent for music, and Mr. Thrasher, he has been giving her lessons this last month, and I wouldn't wonder if it was her!"
Now, it had been my privilege to hear Miss Betty Cox finger the keys one day after Mass, and a more doleful performance I never had listened to. Even if I had not seen the performer, I should have been sure it was not Miss Betty; but, quite apart from her musical proficiency, I felt a little bit indignant that the beautiful girl who had made such an impression upon me should be mistaken for a Betty Cox. No, she was not one of the village damsels; that was clear. And unfortunately it was equally clear that Mrs. Brown knew no more about her than I did myself.
I fell asleep that night humming theAgnus Dei, and dreamed of angels with round hats and brown kid gloves, playing on rickety organs, and hurling legions of musty school-masters out of the clouds.
The next day I took my book to the church-yard, and chose a shady spot where I could hear the first notes of the organ. I waited a long while, reading little, for I could not fix my attention on the page. At last she came, as I had hoped. For more than an hour I listened to the exquisite tones which seemed to flow from her agile fingers. Then she went away without perceiving me.
I need hardly say that I made many another visit to the church, for the pursuit of the fair organist had now become a genuine passion with me. Sometimes I waited all the afternoon without seeing or hearing her. Then I used to go to my room and be moody and miserable all the evening. A rainy day would throw me into despair, and I watched the clouds with the eagerness of a schoolboy on a holiday. My readers will not need to be told that I was falling desperately in love. Once or twice I met her walking, and had an opportunity to notice more particularly the singular beauty of her form and countenance, and the refined and quiet air which pervaded her whole person. Once I met her by accident at the crossing of a brook. I gave her my hand to help her over, and she took it with the modest frankness of a true lady, saying, "Thank you, sir," in a voice which seemed to me as sweet as her face. Yes, I was certainly in love.
I might easily have found out all about her by asking a few questions in the village, where the shopkeepers, at all events, would hardly be as ill informed as my landlady; but since my conversation with Mrs. Brown I had become, I know not why, unwilling to speak of her. I had grown to look upon her asmy secret, which I was disposed to guard pretty jealously. A bit of mystery, be it ever so little and unnecessary, is one of the most charming things in the world to a young lover, and I have always thought that Sheridan displayed great knowledge of human nature when he made Lydia Languish refuse to be married without an elopement. At some time in our lives almost all of us give way to more or less of the same sort of nonsense.
There came a sudden end at last to my mooning and dreaming, and it came in a way with which even Lydia Languish herself could not have quarrelled. I had been off one day on a long ramble among the hills, and, missing my way, did not get back to Meadowbrook until close upon evening. As I came near the village, I was made aware of some extraordinary commotion in the place. Men and women were hurrying through the streets, and voices were shouting in excited tones. I ran after the crowd, and as I turned into the main street a glance in the direction of the church revealed the cause of the disturbance. Flames were bursting through the gallery windows, and a dense smoke poured through the open door. Nearly the whole population of Meadowbrook had gathered around the scene of disaster. The men, and some of the women with them, had formed lines leading to one or two of the nearest wells, and were passing buckets with all the speed they could; but it was too evident with but little prospect of subduing the conflagration. I have already mentioned that the building was of stone, so there was little fear of the walls falling; but the woodwork of the interior was old, and burned almost like tinder. The organ-gallery was, of course, of wood, and inside the tower, which stood at the front of the edifice, there was a wooden staircase, forming the only means of access to the gallery. It was in the tower, I saw at once, that the flames were burning most fiercely. The rear of the church was as yet untouched. I need hardly tell what my first thought was when I saw the cruel glare that lighted up the approaching twilight. A sickening sensation crept over me. If the fair musician was in the gallery when the fire broke out, her escape seemed effectually cut off. I ran forward but there was little need to ask questions. The distressed expression on every face, the eager eyes fixed upon the windows of the gallery, the frantic but vain efforts of one or two of the boldest of the crowd to penetrate the doorway, out of which the smoke was rolling in great black clouds, told me that my worst fears were true.
"Ah! sir," said one of the men "it's a dreadful thing to see a pretty young creature like that burned to death before our very eyes. But we can't get to her!"
A cold perspiration broke out upon my forehead, and for a moment I reeled like a drunkard. "Good heavens!" I cried; "have you no ladders?"
"Yes, we have two; but look at the tower, sir. There's no window except in the belfry, and both the ladders together would not reach that."
"Take the ladders into the church by the back way," I cried, "and get up the front of the gallery! Here," I added, pulling out my purse, "this for the first man who reaches her."
"We wouldn't want your money, sir, if we could get at the young lady," answered one or two voices together; "but there's little use in trying. Three men have gone into the church already."
They were still speaking when there was a stir among the crowd at the side of the building, and the three men reappeared. Their clothes were scorched, and even their hair was slightly singed.
"Can't do it," said one; "the gallery front is burning like a furnace. We got the ladders up, but we could not climb them and hardly got them away again."
"Did you see anything of her?"
"No, and didn't hear a sound. If she has not been choked already by the smoke, she must have gone up into the tower."
It was a slight hope, yet there was something in it after all. Behind the organ there was, as I knew, a door opening into a sort of lumber-room in the tower, from which a rude flight of steps, terminating in a ladder, led up to the bell. It was possible that when she found the gallery staircase in flames, (I afterward learned that it was here the fire broke out; it was supposed to have been caused by a coal dropped on the stairs by a tinker who had been repairing the roof that afternoon)—it was just possible, I say, that she might have retreated up these steps in the hope of being rescued through the belfry window. For a moment or two after the failure to reach her through the interior, there was a pause of awful suspense. Whatever was to be done, however, must be done at once. The flames were making rapid headway, and in ten minutes nothing would be left of the tower but the bare stone shell. Already it was doubtful if any one could survive even in the upper portion of it. The men were still throwing bucketfuls of water into the burning porch with frantic speed; but this, of course, did little good, for the fire was spreading high above their reach. Others were running helplessly about with coils of rope. Suddenly a thought seized me. Just in front of the church, but on the opposite side of the road, stood an enormous elm-tree. Some of its upper branches reached within fifty feet of the top of the tower. Was it not possible to bridge across that chasm?
"Is there any opening," I cried, "in the tower roof?"
"No, sir; none at all."
"Give me an axe and some rope."
Two or three axes were thrust at me. I took one, and tied it round my waist with a long coil of rope. Then I chose out another coil, and, throwing it over one of the lower limbs of the elm-tree, clambered with some difficulty into the branches. It would have been very hard climbing without the rope; but as I could throw it from limb to limb where I could not reach, and as I was a sufficiently expert gymnast to pull myself up by it, a few seconds saw me on one of the upper branches which had caught my eye from below. There was a battlement around the top of the tower, and I thought if I could secure one end of the rope to one of the projections of this battlement, I might contrive, by tying the other to the tree, to work my way across. I made a large slip-noose, gathered up the line like a lasso, and cast it with all my strength. The first attempt failed. The crowd below saw my object now, and gave a tremendous cheer. I tried again, and this time the noose caught upon the battlement. I drew up the rope as tight as I could, tied it fast to the tree, and, clasping it with my legs and hands, began the most dangerous and difficult part of my enterprise. There was a breathless silence below as I pulled myself across the awful chasm. I could hear the roar and crackling of the flames, and the hot air and acrid smoke were driven into my face until I thought I should have fainted and fallen to the ground. At last I reached the battlement. With much trouble I clambered upon the roof, and while the excited villagers were screaming themselves hoarse and hurrahing like madmen—I hardly heard their cries at the time, but, with other incidents of that memorable afternoon, they came to me afterward—I plied my axe so vigorously that in a few minutes I had stripped off a section of the roofing, and made an opening two or three feet square. It was too dark now to distinguish anything in the interior, but I knew that the platform on which the bell rested must be some twelve or fifteen feet below me.Fastening the second coil of rope to the battlement, I let myself down through the hole until I felt the solid planking under my feet. There was a suffocating odor of fire, but the air was still pure enough to be breathed without serious inconvenience, groped about in the dark until I found the ladder leading below, and, trembling with apprehension, hurried down as fast as I was able. I shouted, but there was no answer. I reached the landing-stage where the ladder stopped and the rough steps, already mentioned, began, and at this moment some barrier which had kept the flames confined below seemed to give way, and a flood of light streamed up the staircase. I hurried on with the energy of desperation. When I reached the lumber-room, the door-way leading into the gallery was wrapped in fire. Through it I could see the old organ blazing, the planks dropping off one by one, and the metal pipes melting under the intense heat. The lower staircase was nearly consumed, and the floor of the room itself had caught in several places. The dreadful glow reflected upon the rough stone walls and rugged beams showed me in a moment what I had come to seek. There, in a remote corner which the fire had not yet reached, was a female form stretched senseless on the floor. A round hat was lying beside her, and her rich brown hair fell in graceful waves over her neck. Her white arms, from which the sleeves had fallen back, were stretched out before her, and her fingers clasped a rosary, as if her last conscious act had been a prayer. I seized her by the waist, and, with a strength at which I even now wonder, rushed with my burden toward the steps which I had just descended. She was still living. I could feel the beating of her heart and the heaving of her breast, and my joy at this discovery gave me fresh energy. How I got her up the steps I never clearly knew; but in a short space of time I had reached the top of the ladder and burst open the single window which looked out from the bell-chamber. The cool air revived her almost instantly. I held her up for a moment by the window, and, as she opened her eyes with a bewildered stare, I tried to say a word to calm her. She gazed at me an instant and then burst into tears, and her head fell forward on my shoulder.
"Fear nothing, dear lady," said I, "you are safe now. Collect your strength as much as you can. I am going to let you down through this window."
"And yourself!" she asked, staggering to her feet.
"Oh! make yourself easy about me. I shall follow you by the same way. You have only to keep calm, and there is little real danger."
The rope by which I had descended from the roof was still hanging there. I whipped out my knife, and cut it off as high as I could, there was still enough left to reach within fifteen feet of the ground. I tied it around her waist, wrapping my coat about it, so that it might chafe her as little as possible, gave it two turns around the windlass of the bell to strengthen my hold, and then shouted to the crowd below to put up their longest ladder under the window. A cheer told me that I was understood, and, before the preparations for the descent were quite finished, I saw a ladder raised against the wall, and two or three stout fellows standing ready to receive my burden.
"Now," said I, "you have only to be careful to keep yourself clear of the stones with your feet; grasp the rope by this knot to diminish the strain on your waist, and trust me for the rest."
The window was so near the floor that there was little difficulty in her getting out. I braced my feet firmly against the windlass, and lowered away carefully, but as fast as I dared, for the increased roaring of the flames below warned me that I had not a second to lose. The openings I had made in the roof and window had, of course, created a strong draught in the tower, and the fire was now burning in it like a furnace. Her feet touched the topmost round of the ladder just as I had got within a yard of the end of the rope. A pair of brawny arms received her, and at that moment the floor of the lumber room and gallery fell in with an awful crash; there was a lull for an instant; then a dense mass of smoke, flame, and cinders burst forth, as if belched from a volcano, and in less than a minute theoutsideas well as the interior of the tower was wrapped in flame. Not soon enough, however, to touch what I had fought so hard to save. I thank God I had the presence of mind, when I heard the crash, to know what was coming; and, that no precious moments might be lost in unfastening the rope from her waist, I threw the other end out the window the instant I saw her foothold was secure, and the men hurried her down the ladder just in time. I heard her utter a cry of horror as I sacrificed my own means of escape, and, looking out, I saw her carried senseless away. Terrible as my danger was, I could not help noticing the awful grandeur of the scene. Twilight had given way to night, but the red glare illuminated the surrounding objects, and threw a flickering, unearthly light upon the upturned faces of the crowd. I saw women running to and fro, wringing their hands in despair, and men looking up at the window where I stood, with an expression of mingled fright and pity. But, if I had had a mile of rope, it would have been of little use to me now. The burning timbers had fallen outside the door of the tower, and I could not have let myself down without falling into the midst of them. I thought of the bell-rope; if I could get back to the roof with that, I might let myself down at the side. It would not be long enough to reach near the ground, but, if I escaped with a broken leg, that would be better anyhow than being burnt to death. I seized the rope where it was attached to the bell, and began to pull it up through the hole in the floor; a few feet of it only came away in my hand; the rest had been consumed. The smoke by this time was pouring through every crack, and the heat of the small chamber in which I stood was so intense that I knew that, too, must soon fall in. The roof was about twelve feet above me. My last hope was to reach it, and return by the same frightful bridge by which I had worked my way over. I shuddered to think of trusting myself again upon that dizzy crossing, with my hands already torn and bleeding, my brain reeling, and my eyes half-blinded. I sprang, however, upon the windlass, and made one desperate leap for the hole in the roof. I just grasped the rafters, and as I did so the planks upon which I had been standing gave way, and the bell and its platform sank into the ruins. I never can forget the horror of that moment when, as I made my leap, I felt the timbers crack and fall under my foot into the blazing abyss. For the present, however, I was safe. I had got a firm hold, and with much exertion, nerved by the strength of desperation, I succeeded in drawing myself up and getting upon the roof. The rope-bridge was still there.I staggered toward it, and as I showed myself over the battlements a hearty cheer went up from the crowd, who had given me up for lost when the belfry fell in. I heard, yet hardly heeded them. In the act of climbing over the parapet, my eye fell upon the fragment of the second rope which I had cut away. Scarcely reflecting upon what I did, yet with a sort of providential instinct, I loosened it from the wall, tied one end around my body, and passed the other around the rope which had to support me across the dreadful chasm, making it fast with a noose which would slip easily as I pulled myself along. Thus the whole weight of my body would not have to be borne by my disabled hands. This precaution, I believe, was all that saved me. I made the crossing with great pain, dizzy from excitement and over-exertion, and suffering intensely from the smoke and flames which the wind was now driving upon me. Ten or twenty yards of the distance were yet to be passed, when I was dimly conscious of a sudden swaying of the crowd, a suppressed groan from many voices at once, then a quick slackening of the rope, a thundering crash as of falling walls, and a quick rush of air that took away my breath. Mechanically I tightened my grasp. Without seeing, I knew what had happened. The tower had fallen in. It has often been mentioned how in a moment of deadly peril the memories of years will rush across the mind with the speed of lightning. Now, in the instant while I was falling through the air, I had time to notice the excitement of the people, to comprehend what had taken place, to breathe a short prayer, and to calculate my chances of being dashed to pieces against either the trunk of the tree or some of the lower branches. But the same good Lord who had saved me before was again on my side. The rope swung free of obstructions; I was jerked once or twice back and forth; I lost my hold; there was a sharp pain as if some one had struck me a tremendous blow, and I knew no more.
When I came to my senses again, it was with a feeling of bewilderment inexpressibly painful. I recognized nothing about me; I remembered nothing that had happened. I was lying in bed in a large, cheerful room, so bright and pretty that it was comfort even to look at it. The sun was struggling through the closed blinds, two or three logs of wood blazed in the capacious fire-place, and two luxurious, great, chintz-covered armchairs stood before the hearth. The walls were hung with a neat flowered paper, and the mantel-shelf was decorated with curious old china vases and various knick-knacks. Everything was the perfection of cleanliness and order, yet nothing looked prim. The coverlid on the bed was of warm, harmonious tints; the linen was, beautifully soft and white; there was a table in the middle of the room, covered with a bright cloth, and bearing a number of books and a dish of luscious-looking fruit; and on a little stand by the bedside was a bouquet of rare hot-house flowers. Here was a pleasant scene to open one's eyes upon; but where was I? I threw myself back upon the pillow, and gradually the events I have narrated in the preceding pages shaped themselves in my memory. I felt very weak, but I was not long in satisfying myself that I had broken no bones. I looked at my wounded hands. They were covered with scars, but the wounds were healed. I knew then that I must have been lying there a pretty long time. I was still wondering, when the door opened softly, and a tidy-looking elderly woman, whose dress indicated that she was some sort of an upper servant, came into the room.She uttered an exclamation of pleasure when she caught my eye, and came up to the bedside.
"Well, sir," said she, "it does my heart good to see you looking so much better. You've had a hard time of it, that's the truth; but we'll soon have you up, now."
"You're very kind," I answered; "anybody might get well in this room; but please tell me where I am."
"O sir! you're at Meadowbrook House. Miss Forsythe had you fetched here right after the fire." "How long ago was that?" "About two weeks." "So long! I must have been very sick. You are very good."
I thought she seemed a little surprised at the fervor of my gratitude; but I took no notice of it, and was going on to ask her further questions when she very peremptorily shut me up.
"Now, that will do," said she; "don't say another word. You must keep quiet for a while; if you talk, I'll go away and not come near you again."
"Just one thing more. Who brought those flowers?"
"Well, if you must know, Miss Forsythe herself. She brings them every day. I suppose she'd scold if she knew I told you. But now, keep quiet till the doctor comes, and, if he is willing, I'll chat with you as much as you please."
So saying, the good-natured nurse to ensure my silence, left the room. But, indeed, I felt little desire to talk any more just then. I had asked about the flowers with a vague hope that they might have been culled by the hand which I had learned to prize so dear, and I am ashamed to say that, when the name of the excellent old lady, whose hospitality I was receiving was mentioned, I turned my head with a sigh of disappointment. I fell to worrying about the fair organist; wondering whether she had suffered any harm from the perilous occurrences of that memorable night; whether I should ever meet her again, andhowwe should meet; how I could approach her without seeming to presume upon the service I had rendered; and, finally, why Miss Forsythe should have lavished so much care and kindness on a total stranger. I was in the midst of such reveries when my nurse returned and ushered in the doctor.
"Well, Franklin, old fellow! Got your wits again, have you?" exclaimed a cheery and familiar voice. "That's right; now we'll soon get you on your legs."
The doctor was no other than my old friend Tom Bowlder. He had heard of my accident, hurried down to Meadowbrook, taken entire control of me, established a close friendship with the lady of the mansion, put himself on the best of terms with the housekeeper, Mrs. Benson, and installed her as nurse, and, thanks to his skill and tenderness, I had passed safely through a dangerous crisis. After putting a few professional questions, he sat down by the bedside, and indulged me with a little conversation.
"Well, old boy," said he, "I suppose you want to be told first about yourself." (I did not; but I let him go on.) "You've had an ugly time of it—brain fever and that sort of thing, you know—and it's a wonder you weren't killed outright. But you are all right now, and you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you saved one of the prettiest girls that ever breathed, and I do believe one of the best."