The World for Sale, Complete

by Gilbert Parker

  CHAPTER XXIV. AT LONG LAST

  Originally the Catholic church at Manitou had stood quite by itself,well back from the river, but as the town grew its dignified isolationwas invaded and houses kept creeping nearer and nearer to it. So thatwhen it caught fire there was general danger, because the town possessedonly a hand fire-engine. Since the first settlement of the place therehad been but few fires, and these had had pretty much their own way.When one broke out the plan was to form a long line of men, who passedbuckets of water between the nearest pump, well, or river, and theburning building. It had been useful in incipient fires, but it waschild's play in a serious outburst. The mournful fact that Manitou hadnever equipped itself with a first-class fire-engine or a fire-brigadewas now to play a great part in the future career of the two towns.Osterhaut put the thing in a nutshell as he slithered up the main streetof Lebanon on his way to the manning of the two fire-engines at theLebanon fire-brigade station.

  "This thing is going to link up Lebanon and Manitou like a trace-chain,"he declared with a chuckle. "Everything's come at the right minute.Here's Ingolby back on the locomotive, running the good old train ofProgress, and here's Ingolby's fire-brigade, which cost Lebanon twentythousand dollars and himself five thousand, going to put out the firesof hate consuming two loving hamulets. Out with Ingolby's fire-brigade!This is the day the doctor ordered! Hooray!"

  Osterhaut had a gift of being able to do two things at one time. Nothingprevented him from talking, and though it had probably never beentested, it is quite certain he could have talked under water. His wordshad been addressed to Jowett, who drew to him on all great occasionslike the drafts of a regiment to the main body. Jowett was often verycritical of Osterhaut's acts, words and views, but on this occasion theywere of one mind.

  "I guess it's Ingolby's day all right," answered Jowett. "When you say'Hooray!' Osterhaut, I agree, but you've got better breath'n I have.I can't talk like I used to, but I'm going to ride that fire-engine tosave the old Monseenoor's church--or bust."

  Both Jowett and Osterhaut belonged to the Lebanon fire-brigade, whichwas composed of only a few permanent professionals, helped by capableamateurs. The two cronies had their way, and a few moments later,wearing brass helmets, they were away with the engine and the hose,leaving the less rapid members of the brigade to follow with theladders.

  "What did the Chief do?" asked Osterhaut. "Did you see what happened tohim?"

  Jowett snorted. "What do you think Mr. Max Ingolby, Esquire, would do?He commandeered my sulky and that rawbone I bought from the ReverendTripple, and away he went like greased lightning over the bridge. Idon't know why I drove that trotter to-day, nor why I went on thatsulky, for I couldn't hear good where I was, on the outskirts of themeeting; but I done it like as if the Lord had told me. The Chiefspotted me soon as the fire-bell rung. In a second he bundled me off,straddled the sulky, and was away 'fore you could say snakes."

  "I don't believe he's strong enough for all this. He ain't got back towhere he was before the war," remarked Osterhaut sagely.

  "War--that business at Barbazon's! You call that war! It wasn't war,"declared Jowett spasmodically, grasping the rail of the fire-engineas the wheel struck a stone and nearly shot them from their seats. "Itwasn't war. It was terrible low-down treachery. That Gipsy gent, Fawe,pulled the lever, but Marchand built the scaffold."

  "Heard anything more about Marchand--where he is?" asked Osterhaut, asthe hoofs of the horses clattered on the bridge.

  "Yes, I've heard--there's news," responded Jowett. "He's been lyingdrunk at Gautry's caboose ever since yesterday morning at five o'clock,when he got off the West-bound train. Nice sort of guy he is. What's thegood of being rich, if you can't be decent Some men are born low. Theyalways find their level, no matter what's done for them, and Marchand'slevel is the ditch."

  "Gautry's tavern--that joint!" exclaimed Osterhaut with repulsion.

  "Well, that ranchman, Dennis What's-his-name, is looking for him, andFelix can't go home or to the usual places. I dunno why he comes back atall till this Dennis feller gits out."

  "Doesn't make any bones about it, does he? Dennis Doane's the name,ain't it? Marchand spoiled his wife-run away with her up along the WindRiver, eh?" asked Osterhaut.

  Jowett nodded: "Yes, that's it, and Mr. Dennis Doane ain't careful;that's the trouble. He's looking for Marchand, and blabbing what hemeans to do when he finds him. That ain't good for Dennis. If he killsMarchand, it's murder, and even if the lawyers plead unwritten law, andhe ain't hung, and his wife ain't a widow, you can't have much marriedlife in gaol. It don't do you any good to be punished for punishingsomeone else. Jonas George Almighty--look! Look, Osterhaut!"

  Jowett's hand was pointing towards the Catholic church, from a window ofwhich smoke was rolling. "There's going to be something to do there. Itain't a false alarm, Snorty."

  "Well, this engine'll do anything you ask it," rejoined Osterhaut."When did you have a fire last, Billy?" he shouted to the driver of theengine, as the horses' feet caught the dusty road of Manitou.

  "Six months," was the reply, "but she's working smooth as music. She'sas good as anything 'twixt here and the Atlantic."

  "It ain't time for Winter fires. I wonder what set it going," saidJowett, shaking his head ominously. "Something wrong with the furnace,I s'pose," returned Osterhaut. "Probably trying the first heatup of theFall."

  Osterhaut was right. No one had set the church on fire. The sextonhad lighted the furnace for the first time to test it for the Winter'sworking, but had not stayed to see the result. There was a defect in thefurnace, the place had caught fire, and some of the wooden flooring hadbeen burnt before the aged Monseigneur Lourde discovered it. It was hewho had given the alarm and had rescued the silver altar-vessels fromthe sacristy.

  Manitou offered brute force, physical energy, native athletics, muscleand brawn; but it was of no avail. Five hundred men, with five hundredbuckets of water would have had no effect upon the fire at St. Michael'sChurch at Manitou; willing hands and loving Christian hearts would havebeen helpless to save the building without the scientific aid of theLebanon fire-brigade. Ingolby, on founding the brigade, had equipped itto the point where it could deal with any ordinary fire. The work it hadto do at St. Michael's was critical. If the church could not be saved,then the wooden houses by which it was surrounded would be swept away,and the whole town would be ablaze; for though it was Autumn, everythingwas dry, and the wind was sufficient to fan and spread the flames.

  Lebanon took command of the whole situation, and for the first time inthe history of the two towns men worked together under one control likebrothers. The red-shirted river-driver from Manitou and the lawyer'sclerk from Lebanon; the Presbyterian minister and a Christian brotherof the Catholic school; a Salvation Army captain and a black-headedCatholic shantyman; the President of the Order of Good Templars and aswitchman member of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament slavedtogether on the hand-engine, to supplement the work of the two splendidengines of the Lebanon fire-brigade; or else they climbed the roofs ofhouses, side by side, to throw on the burning shingles the buckets ofwater handed up to them.

  For some time it seemed as though the church could not be saved. Thefire had made good headway with the flooring, and had also made progressin the chancel and the altar. Skill and organization, combined with goodluck, conquered, however. Though a portion of the roof was destroyed andthe chancel gutted, the church was not beyond repair, and a few thousanddollars would put it right. There was danger, however, among the smallerhouses surrounding the church, and there men from both towns worked withgreat gallantry. By one of those accidents which make fatality, a smallwooden house some distance away, with a roof as dry as wool, caught firefrom a flying cinder. As everybody had fled from their own homesand shops to the church, this fire was not noticed until it had madeheadway. Then it was that the cries of Madame Thibadeau, who wasconfined to her bed in the house opposite, were heard, and the crowdpoured down towards the burning building. It
was Gautry's "caboose."Gautry himself had been among the crowd at the church.

  As Gautry came reeling and plunging down the street, someone shouted,"Is there anyone in the house, Gautry?"

  Gautry was speechless with drink. He threw his hands up in the airwith a gesture of maudlin despair, and shouted something which no oneunderstood. The crowd gathered like magic in the wide street before thehouse--the one wide street in Manitou--from the roof and upper windowsof which flames were bursting. Far up the street was heard the noisyapproach of the fire-engine, which now would be able to do little morethan save adjoining buildings. Gautry, reeling, mumbling and whining,gestured and wept.

  A man shook him roughly by the shoulder. "Brace up, get steady, youdamned old geezer! Is there any body in the house? Do you hear? Is thereanybody in the house?" he roared.

  Madame Thibadeau, who had dragged herself from her bed, was now at thewindow of the house opposite. Seeing Fleda Druse passing beneath, shecalled to her.

  "Ma'mselle, Felix Marchand is in Gautry's house--drunk!" she cried."He'll burn to death--but yes, burn to death."

  In agitation Fleda hastened to where the stranger stood shaking oldGautry.

  "There's a man asleep inside the house," she said to the stranger, andthen all at once she realized who he was. It was Dennis Doane, whosewife was staying in Gabriel Druse's home: it was the husband ofMarchand's victim.

  "A man in there, is there?" exclaimed Dennis. "Well, he's got to besaved." He made a rush for the door. Men called to him to come back,that the roof would fall in. In the smoking doorway he looked back."What floor?" he shouted.

  From the window opposite, her fat old face lighted by the blazing roof,Madame Thibadeau called out, "Second floor! It's the second floor!"

  In an instant Dennis was lost in the smoke and flame.

  One, two, three minutes passed. A fire-engine arrived; in a moment thehose was paid out to the river near by, and as a fireman seized thenozzle to train the water upon the building the roof fell in with acrash. At that instant Dennis stumbled out of the house, blind withsmoke, his clothes aflame, carrying a man in his arms. A score of handscaught them, coats smothered Dennis's burning clothes, and the man hehad rescued was carried across the street and laid upon the pavement.

  "Great glory, it's Marchand! It's Felix Marchand!" someone shouted.

  "Is he dead?" asked another.

  "Dead drunk," was the comment of Osterhaut, who had helped to carry himacross the street.

  At that moment Ingolby appeared on the scene. "What's all this?" heasked. Then he recognized Marchand. "He's been playing with fire again,"he added sarcastically, and there was a look of contempt on his face.

  As he said it, Dennis broke through the crowd and made for Marchand.Stooping over, he looked into Marchand's face.

  "Hell and damnation--you!" he growled. "I risked my life to save you!"

  With a sudden access of rage his hand suddenly went to his hip-pocket,but another hand was quicker. It was that of Fleda Druse.

  "No--no," she said, her fingers on his wrist. "You have hadyour revenge. For the rest of his life he will have to bear hispunishment--that you have saved him. Leave him alone. It was to be. Itis fate."

  Dennis Doane was not a man of great thinking capacity. If he gota matter into his head it stayed there till it was dislodged, anddislodging was a real business with him.

  "If you want her to live with you again, you had better let this be asit is," whispered Fleda, for the crowd were surging round and cheeringthe new hero. "Just escaped the roof falling in," said one.

  "Got the strength of two, for a drunk man weighs twice as heavy as asober one!" exclaimed another admiringly.

  "Marchand's game is up on the Sagalac," declared a third decisively.

  The excitement was so great, however, that only a very few of them knewwhat they were saying, and fewer still knew that Dennis Doane had riskedhis life to save the man he had been stalking for weeks past. Marchandhad been lying on his face in the smoke-filled room when Dennis brokeinto it, and he had been carried down the stairs without his face beingseen at all.

  To Dennis it was as though he had been made a fool of by Fate orProvidence, or whatever controlled the destinies of men; as though thedangerous episode had been arranged to trap him into this situation.

  Ingolby drew near and laid a hand upon Dennis's arm. Fleda's hand was onthe other arm.

  "You can't kill a man and save him too," said Ingolby quietly, andholding the abashed blue eyes of Dennis. "There were two ways to punishhim; taking away his life at great cost, or giving it him at great cost.If you'd taken away his life, the cost would probably have been your ownlife; in giving him his life you only risked your own; you had a chanceto save it. You're a bit scorched-hair, eyebrows, moustache, clothestoo, but he'll have brimstone inside him. Come along. Your wife wouldrather have it this way; and so will you, to-morrow. Come along."

  Dennis suddenly swung round with a gesture of fury. "He spoiledher-treated her like dirt!" he cried huskily.

  With savage purpose he made a movement towards where Marchand had lain;but Marchand was gone. With foresight Ingolby had quickly and quietlyaccomplished that while Dennis's back was turned.

  "You'd be treating her like a brute if you went to prison for killingMarchand," urged Ingolby. "Give her a chance. She's fretting her heartout."

  "She wants to go back to Elk Mountain with you," pleaded Fleda gently."She couldn't do that if the law took hold of you."

  "Ain't there to be any punishment for men like him?" demanded Dennis,stubbornly yet helplessly. "Why didn't I let him burn! I'd have beenwilling to burn myself to have seen him sizzling. Ain't men like that tobe punished at all?"

  "When he knows who has saved him, he'll sizzle inside for the rest ofhis life," remarked Ingolby. "Don't think he hasn't got a heart. He'sdone wrong and gone wrong; he has belonged to the sewer, but he isn'tall bad, and maybe this is the turning-point. Drink'll make a man doanything."

  "His kind are never sorry for what they do," commented Dennis bitterly."They're sorry for what comes from what they do, but not for the doingof it. I can't think the thing out. It makes me sick. I was hunting forhim to kill him; I was watching this town like a lynx, and I've been andgone and saved his body from Hell on earth."

  "Well, perhaps you've saved his soul from Hell below," said Fleda."Ah, come! Your face and hands are burned, your hair is scorched--yourclothes need mending. Arabella is waiting for you. Come home with me toArabella."

  With sudden resolve Dennis squared his shoulders. "All right," he said."This thing's too much for me. I can't get the hang of it. I've lost myhead."

  "No, I won't come, I can't come now," said Ingolby, in response to aninquiring look from Fleda.

  "Not now, but before sundown, please."

  As Fleda and Dennis disappeared, Ingolby looked back towards the fire."How good it is to see again even a sight like that," he said. "Nothingthat the eyes see is so horrible as the pictures that come to the mindwhen the eyes don't see. As Dennis said, I can't get the hang of it, butI'll try--I'll try."

  The burning of Gautry's tavern had been conquered, though not before itwas a shell; and the houses on either side had been saved. Lebanon hadshown itself masterful in organization, but it had also shown that thatwhich makes enemies is not so deep or great a thing as that which makesfriends. Jealous, envious, narrow and bitter Manitou had been, but shenow saw Lebanon in a new light. It was a strange truth that if Lebanonhad saved the whole town of Manitou, it would not have been the sameto the people as the saving of the church. Beneath everything inManitou--beneath its dirt and its drunkenness, its irresponsibility andthe signs of primeval savagery which were part of its life, there wasthe tradition of religion, the almost fanatical worship of that whichwas their master, first and last, in spite of all--the Church. Notone of its citizens but would have turned with horror from the man whocursed his baptism; not one but would want the last sacrament when histime came. Lebanon had saved the Catholic church, the
temple of theirfaith, and in an hour was accomplished what years had not wrought.

  The fire at the church was out. A few houses had been destroyed, andhundreds of others had been saved. The fire-brigade of Lebanon, with itstwo engines, had performed prodigies of valour. The work done, the menmarched back, but with Osterhaut sitting on one fire-engine and Jowetton the other, through crowds of cheering, roaring workmen, rivermen,shantymen, and black-eyed habitants. When Ingolby walked past Barbazon'sTavern arm in arm with Monseigneur Lourde, to the tiny house where thegood priest lived, the old man's face beaming with gratitude, and witha piety which was his very life, the jubilant crowd followed them to thevery door. There the sainted pioneer expressed the feeling of the momentwhen he raised his hands in benediction over them and said:

  "Peace be unto you and the blessings of peace; and the Lord make hisface to shine upon you and give you peace now and for ever more."