THE HOUSE ON THE WALL
In the summer of 1706, two years after the second battle of Hochstett,which Englishmen call Blenheim, in a world ringing with the names ofMarlborough and Eugene, Louis of Baden and Villars, Villeroy theIncapable and Boufflers the Brave--a world, for us of later days, ofdark chaos, luridly lit by the flames of burning hamlets, and gallopedthrough by huge troopers wearing periwigs and thigh boots, and carryingpistols two feet long in the barrel--one of the Austrian captains satdown before the frontier town of Huymonde, in Spanish Flanders, andprepared to take it.
Whereat Huymonde was not too greatly or too fearfully moved. A warmtown, of fat burghers and narrow streets, and oak wainscots that winkedin the firelight, and burnished flagons that caught the drinker's smile,it was not to be lightly excited; and it had been besieged, heaven onlyknows how many times before. Men made ready as for a long frost, tookcount of wine and provisions, and hiding a portion of each under thecellar floor, thanked God that they were not the garrison, and thattimes were changed since the Thirty Years' War. These things done andthe siege formed, they folded their hands and let themselves slide intothe current of an idle life, flecked from time to time with bubbles ofexcitement. When the Austrian guns rumbled without, and the smoke eddiedslowly over the walls, they stood in the streets, their hands in theirmuffs, and gossiped not unpleasantly; when the cannon were silent theysmoked their long pipes on the ramparts, and measured the advance of thetrenches, and listened while the oldest inhabitant prosed of the sack bySpinola in '24 and the winter siege of '41.
Whether the good townsfolk were as brave in private--when at home withtheir wives, for instance--may be doubted; but this for certain, theBurgomaster's trouble lay all with the women. Whether they had lessfaith in the great Louis, Fourteenth of the name, King of France--who,indeed, seemed in these days less superior to a world in arms than inthe dawn of his glory--or they found the oldest inhabitant's tales tooprecisely to the point, they had a way of growing restive once a week,besieged the good Burgomaster's house, and demanded--with a thousandshrill and voluble tongues--immediate surrender on terms. Betweenwhiles, being busy with scrubbing and baking, and washing theirchildren, they were quiet enough. But as surely as Sunday came round,and with it a clean house and leisure to chat with the neighbours, theBurgomaster's hour came too, and with it the mob of women shakingcrooked fingers at him, and bursting his ears with their shrill abuse.He was a bold man, but he began to dream at night of De Witt and hisfate--of which he knew, with many gruesome particulars; and, from astout and pompous burgher, he dwindled in six weeks to a lean and moroseold tyrant. Withal he had no choice, for at his shoulder lurked theFrench Commandant, a resolute man with a wit of his own and a petcurtain--between the Stadthaus bastion and the bastion of the BronzeHorse, and very handy to the former--whereat he shot deserters and thelike on the smallest pretext.
Still, the Burgomaster, as he wiped his sallow face, and watched thelast of the women withdraw on the seventh Sunday of the Siege, began tothink that, rather than pass through this again, he would face even thecurtain and a volley; if he were sure that one volley would do it, andno botching. The ordeal had been more severe than usual: his cheek stilltwitched, and he leaned against his official table to belie histrembling knees. He had been settling a change of billets, when theviragos broke in on him, and only his clerk had been present; for hiscouncil--and this he felt sorely--much bullied in old days, weretreating him to solitude and the monopoly of the burden. His clerk waswith him now; but affected to be busy with the papers on the table.Perhaps he was scared too, and equally bent on hiding it; at any rate,it was the Burgomaster who first discovered that they were not alone,but that one woman still lingered. She had placed herself in a corner ofthe oak seat that ran round the panelled room; and the stained glass ofthe windows, blazoned with the arms of Huymonde and the Counts ofFlanders, cast a veil of tawny lights between her and the gazer; behindwhich she seemed to lurk. The Burgomaster started, then remembered thatthe danger was over for the time--he was not afraid of one woman; and ina harsh voice he bade her follow her mates.
"Begone, wench!" he said. "And go to your prayers! That is women's work.Leave these things to men."
The woman rose to her full height. "When men," she answered, in a voiceat which the Burgomaster started afresh, "hide themselves, it is timewomen stood forward. Where is your son?"
The Burgomaster swore.
"Where is your son?" the woman repeated firmly.
The Burgomaster swore again, his sallow face grown purple: then helooked at his clerk and signed to him to go. The clerk went, wonderingand gaping--for this was unusual--and the two were left together.
At that the Burgomaster found his voice. "You Jezebel!" he cried,approaching the woman. "How dare you come here to make mischief? Howdare you lay your tongue to my son's name? Do you know, shameless one,that if I were to give the word----"
But at that word the woman caught fire, blazed up, and outdid him inrage. She was a middle-aged woman and spare, with a face naturally paleand refined, and an air of pride that peeped even through the neatpoverty of her dress. But at that word she shook her hands in his faceand her eyes blazed.
"Shameless?" she retorted. "No, but shameful; and through whom? Throughyour son, your villain, your craven of a son who hides now! Through yourbase-born tradesman of a son who dare face neither woman nor man."
"Silence!" the Burgomaster cried. "Silence!"
She broke off, but only to throw her whole soul into one breathless cry.
"Will he marry her?" she panted; and she held out her hands to him, palmuppermost. "Will he marry her? In a word."
"No," the Burgomaster answered grimly.
She flung up her arms.
"Then beware!" she cried wildly, and for the first time she raised hervoice to the pitch of those other shrews. "Beware! You and yours havebrought us to shame; but the end is not yet, the end is not yet! You donot know us."
At that he rallied himself. "I may not know you yet," he said hardily,and indeed brutally; "but I know this, that such things as these come,woman, of people setting themselves up to be better than theirneighbours, when they are as poor as church mice. They come of slightinghonest fellows and setting caps at those above you. Your daughter--oryou, woman, if you like it better--set the trap, and you are caught init yourselves. That is all."
"You wretch!" she gasped. "And he--will not marry her?"
"Not while I live," he answered firmly.
"And that is your last word?"
"It is," he said. "My very last."
He was on his guard, prepared to defend himself even against actualviolence. For he knew what angry women were and of what they werecapable even against a Burgomaster. But after a tense pause of suspense,during every moment of which he expected her to fall upon him, she saidonly, "Where is he?"
"I shall not tell you," he answered. "Nor would it help you if youknew!"
"And that is all?"
"That is all."
It was not their first interview. She had pled with him before, andknelt and wept and abased herself before him. She had done all that thelove that tore her heartstrings--the love that made it so much moredifficult to see her child suffer than to suffer herself, the love thatevery moment painted the bare room at home, and her daughter prostratethere in shame and despair--she had done all that even love couldsuggest. There was no room therefore for farther pleading, for fartherprayers; she had threatened, and she had failed. What, then, remained tobe done?
Nothing, the Burgomaster thought, as in a flash of triumph and relief hewatched her go, outfaced and defeated. Nothing; and he hugged himself onthe prudence that had despatched his son out of the way in time, andrendered a match with that proud pauper brat impossible. Nothing; but tothe woman, as she went, it seemed that everything remained to be done.As she left the little square with its tall slender gabled houses andplunged into the narrow street that led to her house on the wall, thestory of her life in Huymonde spread itself befo
re her in a string ofscenes that now--now alas! but never before--seemed to find theirnatural sequence in this tragedy. Nine years before she had come toHuymonde with her artist husband; but the great art of the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries was already dying or dead in Flanders, and with itthe artistic sense, and the honour once paid to it. Huymonde made delftstill, and pottery, but on old conventional lines, in an endlessrepetition of old formal patterns, with no touch of genius orappreciation. Trade, and a desire to win the florid ease, the sleekcomfort of the burgher, possessed the town wholly. The artist had foundhimself a stranger in a strange land; had struggled on, despising anddespised, in the quaint house on the wall, at which he had snatched onhis first coming because it looked over the open country. There, afterseven years, he had slipped out of life, scarcely better known, and nowhit more highly appreciated than on the day of his arrival.
After that the story was of two women living _sola cum sola_--one whollyfor the other--suspected, if not disliked, by their neighbours, and fortheir part alien in all their thoughts and standards; since the artist'swidow could not forget that he had been the favourite pupil of PeterPaul's old age, or that her father had counted quarterings. _Sola cumsola_, until one day the war began, and Huymonde set about looking toits defences. Then a young man appeared on a certain evening to inspectthe House on the Wall, and see that the window, which looked out uponthe level country side, was safely and properly built up andstrengthened.
"You must have a sergeant and guard billeted here!" was his first sharpword; and the widow had sighed at this invasion of their privacy, whichwas also their poverty. But the young girl, standing sideways in thatvery window, which was to be closed, had pouted her red lips and frownedon the intruder, and the sergeant had not come, nor the guard. Insteadthe young man had returned, at first weekly, then at shorter intervals,to see that the window defences remained intact; and with his appearancelife in the House on the Wall had become a different thing. He was theson of the Burgomaster of the town, he would be the richest man in thetown, his wife might repay with interest and advantage the dull bovinescorn to which the city dames had treated her mother. The widowpermitted herself to hope. Her child was beautiful, with the creamyfairness of Gueldres, and as pure as the sky. The young man was gay andhandsome; qualities which made their due impression on the elder woman'sheart, long unfamiliar with them. So, for more than a year he had hadthe run of the house, he had been one of the family; and then one day hehad disappeared, and then one other day----
Oh, God of vengeance! She paused in the darkening street, as she thoughtof it. Beside her a long window, warmly curtained, sent out a stream ofruddy light. From the opposite house issued cheery voices and tinklinglaughter, and the steam of cooking. And before and behind, whichever wayshe looked, firelight flashed through diamond panes and glowed in theheart of green bottle-glass. Out in the street men shouldered past her,talking blithely; and in distant kitchens cups clinked and wareclattered, and every house--every house from garret to parlour, seemedto her a home happy and gleeful. A home; and _her_ home! She stood atthe thought and cursed them; cursed them, and like the echo of herwhispered words the solemn boom of a cannon floated over the town.
A chance passer, seeing her stand thus, caught the whiteness of herface, and thought her afraid. "Cheer up, mother!" he said over hisshoulder, "they are all bark and little bite!"
"I would they bit to the bone!" she cried in fury.
But luckily he was gone too far to hear or to understand; and, resumingher course, she hurried on, her head bowed. A few minutes' walkingbrought her to the foot of the stone steps that, in two parallelflights, led up to the low-browed door of her house. There, as she sether foot on the lowest stair, and wearily began the ascent, a manadvanced out of the darkness and touched her sleeve. For an instant shethought it _the_ man, and she caught her breath and stepped back. Buthis first word showed her her mistake.
"You live here?" he said abruptly. "Can I come in?"
In ordinary times his foreign accent and the glint of a pistol-barrel,which caught her eye as he spoke, would have set her on her guard. Butto-night she had nothing to lose--nothing, it seemed to her, to hope.She scarcely looked at the man. "As you please," she said dully. "Whatdo you want?"
"To speak to you."
"Come in then," she said.
She did not turn to him again until they stood together in the roomabove, and the door was shut. Then she asked him a second time what hewanted.
"Are we alone?" he returned, staring suspiciously about him.
"My daughter is above," she answered. "There is no one else in thehouse."
"And you are poor?"
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, and by a movement of her handsseemed to put the room in evidence; one or two pictures, standing oneasels, and a few common painter's properties redeemed it from utterbareness, utter misery, yet left it cold and faded.
Nevertheless, his next question took her by surprise. "What rent do youpay?" he asked harshly.
"What rent?" she repeated, shaken out of her moodiness.
"Yes. How many crowns?"
"Twenty," she answered mechanically. What was his aim? What did he want?
"A year?"
"Yes, a year."
The man had a round shaven whitish face that sat in the circle of atightly tied Steinkirk cravat, like an ivory ball in a cup; and shorthair, that might on occasion line a periwig. Notwithstanding his pistol,he had rather the air of a tradesman than a soldier until you met hiseyes, which flashed with a keen glitter that belied his smug face andshaven cheeks. Those eyes caught the widow's eyes as he answered her,and held them.
"Twenty crowns a year," he said. "Then listen. I will give you twohundred crowns for this house--for one night."
"For this house for one night?" she repeated, thinking she had not heardaright.
"For this house, for one night!" he answered.
Then she understood. She was quick-witted, she had lived long in thehouse and knew it. Without more she knew that God or the devil had putthat which she sought into her hands; and her first impulse was to purejoy. The thirst for vengeance welled up, hot and resistless. Now shecould be avenged on all; on the hard-hearted tyrant who had rejected herprayer, on the sleek dames who would point the finger at her child, onthe smug town that had looked askance at her all these years--that hadset her beyond the pale of its dull grovelling pleasures, and shut herup in that lonely House on the Wall! Now--now she had it in her hand totake tenfold for one. Her face so shone at the thought that the manwatching her felt a touch of misgiving; though he was of the boldest orhe had not been there on that errand.
"When?" she said. "When?"
"To-morrow night," he answered. And then, leaning forward, and speakinglightly but in a low voice, he went on, "It is a simple matter. All youhave to do is to find a lodging and begone from here by sunset, leavingthe door on the latch. No more; for the money it shall be paid to you,half to-night and half the day after to-morrow."
"I want no money," she said.
"No money?" he exclaimed incredulously.
"No, no money," she answered, in a tone and with a look that silencedhim.
"But you will do it?" he said, almost with timidity.
"I will do it," she answered. "At sunset to-morrow you will find thedoor on the latch and the house empty. After that see that you do yourpart!"
His eyes lightened. "Have no fear," he said grimly. "But mark one thing,mistress," he continued. "It is an odd thing to do for nothing."
"That is my business!" she cried, with a flash of rage.
He had been about to warn her that during the next twenty-four hours shewould be watched, and that on the least sign of a message passingbetween her and those in authority the plot would be abandoned. But atthat look he held his peace, said curtly that it was a bargain then;and in a twinkling he was gone, leaving her--leaving her alone with hersecret.
Yet for a time it was not of that or of her vengeance that she thought.Her mi
nd was busy with the years of solitude and estrangement she hadpassed in that house and that room; with the depression that little bylittle had sapped her husband's strength and hope, with the slow decayof their goods, their cheerfulness, even the artistic joys that had atfirst upheld them; with the aloofness that had doomed her and her childto a dreary existence; with this last great wrong.
"Yes, let it be! let it be!" she cried. In fancy she saw the town liebelow her--as she had often seen it with the actual eye from theramparts--she saw the clustering mass of warm red roofs and walls, theoutlying towers, the church, the one long straight street; and withoutstretched arm she doomed it--doomed it with a vengeful sense of therighteousness of the sentence.
Yet, strange to say, that which was uppermost in her mind and steeledher soul and justified the worst, was not the last thing of which shehad to complain--her daughter's wrong--but the long years of loneliness,the hundred, nay, the thousand, petty slights of the past, bearable atthe time and in detail, but intolerable in the retrospect now hope wasgone. She dwelt on these, and the thought of what was coming filled herwith a fearful joy. She thought of them, and took the lamp and passedinto the next room, and, throwing the light on the rough face ofbrickwork that closed the great window, she eyed the cracks eagerly, andscarcely kept her fingers from beginning the work. For she understoodthe plot. One man working silently within, in darkness, could demolishthe wall in an hour; then a whistle, rope ladders, a line of menascending, and before midnight the house would vomit armed men, thenearest gate would be seized, the town would lie at the mercy of theenemy!
Presently she had to go to her daughter, but the current of her thoughtskept the same course. The girl was sullen, and lay with her face to thewall, and gave short answers, venting her misery after the common humanfashion on the one who loved her best. The mother bore it, not as beforewith the patience that scorned even to upbraid, but grimly, setting downeach peevish word to the score that was so soon to be paid. She lay allnight beside her child, and in the small hours heard her weep and feltthe bed shake with her unhappiness, and carried the score farther; nay,busied herself with it, so that day and the twittering of sparrows andthe booming of the early guns took her by surprise. Took her bysurprise, but worked no change in her thoughts.
She was so completely under the influence of the idea, that she felt nofear; the chance of discovery, and the certainty that if discovered shewould be done to death without mercy, did not trouble her in the least.She went about her ordinary tasks until late in the afternoon; then,without preface or explanation, she told her daughter that she was goingout to seek a lodging.
The girl was profoundly astonished. "A lodging?" she cried, sitting up."For us?"
"Yes," the mother answered coldly. "For whom do you think?"
"And you will leave this house?"
"Yes."
"But when?"
"To-night."
"Leave this house--for a lodging--to-night?" the girl faltered. Shecould not believe her ears. "Why? What has happened?"
Then the woman, in the fierceness of her mood, turned her arms againsther child. "Need you ask?" she cried bitterly. "Do you want to go onliving in this house--in this house, which was your father's? To go inand out at this door, and meet our neighbours and talk with them onthese steps? To wait here--here, where every one knows you, for theshame that will come? For the man who will never come?"
The girl sank back, shuddering and weeping. The woman covered her headand went out, and presently returned; and in the grey of the evening,which within the walls fell early, the two left the house, the eldercarrying a bundle of clothes, the younger whimpering and wondering.Stupefied by the suddenness of the movement, and her mother's sternpurpose, she did not observe that they had left the door on the latch,and the House on the Wall unguarded.
The people with whom they had found a lodging, a little room under thesharply sloping tiles, knew them by name and sight--that in so small aplace was inevitable--but found nothing strange in the woman's reasonfor moving; she said that at home the firing broke her daughter's rest.The housewife indeed could sympathize with her, and did so. "I never goto bed myself," she said roundly, "but I dream of those wretches sackingthe town, and look to awake with my throat cut."
"Tut--tut!" her husband answered angrily. "You will live to wag yourtongue and make mischief a score of years yet. And for the town beingsacked, there is small chance of that--in these days."
The elder of his new lodgers repeated his words. "Small chance of that?"she said mechanically. "Is that so?"
The man looked at her with patronage. "Little or none," he said. "If wehave to cry Enough, we shall cry it in time, and on terms you may besure; and they will march in like gentlemen, and an end of it."
"But if it happen at night?" the woman asked curiously. She felt astrange compulsion to put the question. "If they should take us bysurprise? What then?"
The man shrugged his shoulders. "Well, then, of course, things might bedifferent," he said. "But, sho! it won't happen. No fear!" he continuedhastily, and in a tone that belied his words. "And you, wife, get backto your pots and leave this talking! You frighten yourself to death withimaginings!"
The woman from the House on the Wall went upstairs to her garret. Shedid not repent of what she had done; but a sense of its greatness beganto take hold of her, and whether she would or not, she found herselfwaiting--waiting and watching for she alone knew what. Given a companionless preoccupied with misery and she must have been suspected. But thegirl lay moodily on her bed, and the widow was at liberty to stand atthe window with her hands spread on the sill, and look, and listen, andlook, and listen, unwatched. She could not see the street, for belowtheir dormer the roof ran down steeply a yard or more to the eaves; butshe had full command of the opposite houses, and at one of the windows ayoung girl was dressing herself. The woman watched her plait her fairhair, looking sideways the while at a little mirror; and saw her put ona poor necklace and remove it again and try a piece of ribbon.Gradually the watcher became interested; from interest she passed tospeculation, and wondered with a slight shudder how this girl would farebetween that and morning. And then the girl looked up and met thewoman's eyes with the innocence of her own--and the woman fell back fromthe window as if a hand had struck her.
She went no more after that to the window; but until it was quite darkshe sat in a chair with her hands on her lap, forcing herself toquietude, as women will, where men would tramp the floor unceasingly.When it was quite dark she trimmed and lit the lamp, and still she didnot repent. But she listened more and more closely, and with lessconcealment. And the face of the girl preening herself at her poormirror returned again and again, and troubled her. She could contemplatethe fate of the town as a whole, and say, let it be! Ay, in God's namelet it be! But the one face seen at a window, the one case brought hometo her, clung to her mind, and pricked and pained her--dully.
By-and-by she heard the clock strike ten, and her daughter, turningfeverishly on the bed, asked her peevishly when she was going to liedown. "Presently," she answered, "presently." And still she sat andlistened, and still the girl's face haunted her. She began to picture indetail the thing for which she was waiting. She fancied that she couldhear the first alert, followed by single cries, these by a roar ofalarm, this by the wild rush of feet; then she heard the crashingvolley, the rattle of hoofs on the pavement, the whirl of the flightthrough the streets, the shouts of "Germany! Germany!" as the troopsswept in triumphant! And then--ah, then!--she heard the things thatwould follow, the crashing in of doors, the sudden glare of flames, thescreams of men driven to the wall, the yells of drunken Saxons, theshrieks of women, the----
No more! No more! She could not bear it. With a shudder she stood erect,and looked about her--wildly. The lamp burned low, her daughter wasasleep. With a swift movement the mother caught up a shawl that laybeside the bed, and turned to the door.
Alas, too late. She had repented, but too late. With her hand on thelatch, her foot on the thr
eshold, she stood, arrested by a low distantcry that caught her ear, and swelled even as she listened to it, into aroar of many voices rousing the town. What was it? Alas, she knew; sheknew, and cowered against the door whitefaced and shaking. A momentpassed, and the alarm, after sinking, rose again, and now there was nodoubt of its meaning. Shod feet pattered through the streets, windowsclattered up noisily; a wild medley of voices broke out, and again in afew seconds was lost in the crashing sound of the very volley she hadforeheard!
From that moment it seemed to her that hell was broken loose in thetown; and she had loosed it! She could no longer, in the din that rosefrom the street, distinguish one sound from another; but the crash ofdistant cannon, the heavy tramp of feet near at hand, the screams andcries and shouting, the blare of trumpets, all rose in a confused babelof sounds that shook the very houses, and blanched the cheeks and drovethe blood to the heart. The woman, cowering against the door, coveredher ears, and groaned. Her horror at what she had done was so great,that she did not heed what was passing near her, nor give a thought tothe child in the same room with her until the latter's voice struck herear, and she turned and found her daughter standing in the middle of thefloor, her hand to her breast, and her eyes wide. Then the mother awokein her again; with pallid shaking lips she cried to her to lie down--tolie down, for there was no danger.
But the girl raised her hand for silence. "Hush!" she said. "I hear astep! It is his! It is his! And he is coming to me! Mother, he is comingto me!"
The mother imagined that terror had turned the girl's brain; it wasinconceivable that in that roar of sound a single step could make itselfheard, or be recognized. And she tried, in a voice that shook withhorror and remorse, to repeat her meaningless words of comfort. Butthey died on her lips, died still-born, as the door flew open, and a manrushed in, gazed an instant, then caught her child in his arms.
It was the Burgomaster's son!
The woman from the House on the Wall leaned an instant against thedoor-post, gazing at them. Little by little as she looked the expressionin her eyes changed, and they took the cold, fixed, distant look of asleep-walker. A moment and she drew a shuddering breath, and turned andwent out, and, groping in the outside darkness for the balustrade, wentunfaltering into the street.
A part of the garrison happened to be retreating that way at the time. Afew were still turning to fire at intervals; but the greater number werehurrying along with bent heads, keeping close to the houses, and intentonly on escaping. Reaching the middle of the roadway she stood therelike a rock, her face turned in the direction whence the fugitives werehastening.
Presently she saw that for which she waited. In the reek of smoke aboutthe burning gate, towards which she looked--and the flames of whichfilled the street with a smoky glare--the glitter of steel shone out;and in a moment, rank on rank, a dense column of men appeared, marchingshoulder to shoulder. She watched them come nearer and nearer, fillingthe street from wall to wall, until she could see the glare of theireyes; then with a cry which was lost in the tumult she rushed on thebayonets.
With eyes shut, with arms open to receive the thrust. But the man whomshe had singled out--for one she had singled out--dropped his point withan oath, and dealt her a buffet with butt and elbow that flung her asideunhurt. A second did the same, and a third, until, bandied from one toanother, she fell against the wall, breathless and dizzy, but unhurt.
The column swept on; and she rose. She had escaped--by a miracle, as itseemed to her. But despair still held her, and the roar of a mineexploding not far off, the stunning report of which was followed byheartrending wails, drove her again on her fate. She had not far tolook, for hard on the foot followed a troop of dragoons. The horses,excited by the fire and the explosion, were plunging in every direction;and even as the crazed woman's eyes alighted on them one fell and threwits rider. It seemed to her that she saw her doom; and, darting from thewall, she flung herself before them.
What was one woman on such a night, in such an inferno? The torrent ofiron, remorseless, unchecked, thundered over her and drove on along thestreet. It seemed impossible that she should have escaped. Yet when somecame to look to the fallen soldier--whose neck was broken--the womanbeside him rose unhurt and without a scratch, and staggered to thewall. There she leaned one moment to recover her breath and shake offher giddiness, and a second to think; then with a new expression on herface, an expression between hope and fear, she took her way weakly alongthe street. The first turning on the right, the second on the leftbrought her unmolested--for the enemy were quelling the last resistancein the Square--to the front of the House on the Wall. She looked upeagerly and saw that the windows were dark; looked at the door, and bythe light of the distant fire saw that it was closed.
Still she scarcely dared to hope that the thing was true; that thingwhich her miraculous escape had suggested to a mind almost unhinged. Ittook her more than a minute to mount the steps and push the heavy dooropen, and satisfy herself that in the outer room at least all was as shehad left it. A spark of fire still glowed on the hearth; she groped herway to it, and blew it into a flame; and with shaking hands she lit aspill of wood and waved it above her head, then held it.
Yes, here all was as she had left it. But in the farther room--_the_room? What would she find there? She stared at the door and dared notopen it; then with a desperate hand tore it open, and stood on thethreshold.
Yes, and here! Here, too, all was as she had left it. She waved thelittle brand above her head heedless of the sparks, waved it until itflamed high and cast a light into every corner. But the searcher's eyessought only one thing, saw only one thing, and that was the mask ofbrickwork that blocked the great window.
It was untouched! It was untouched! She had hoped as much for the lastfive minutes; for everything, the closed door, the unchanged room hadpointed to it. Yet now that she was assured of it, and knew for certainthat she had not done the thing--that guilty as she had been in will,not one life lost that night lay at her door, not one outrage, she fellon her face and wept--wept, though it was the sweetest moment of herlife, prayed though she sought nothing but to thank God--prayed and weptwith childish cries of gratitude, until the light at her side went outand left her in darkness, and through a rift in the masonry a singlestar peered in at her.
In Huymonde there was wailing enough that night; ruin and loss, and abroadcasting of lifelong sentences of penury. One fell to theBurgomaster's lot; and had she still aught against him--but she hadnot--the score was paid. And many prayed, and a few, when morning came,and showed their roofs still standing, gave thanks. But to this womanprostrate through the hours on the floor of the forsaken House on theWall, all that night was one long prayer and thanksgiving. For she hadpassed through the fire, the smell of the singeing was on her garments,and yet she was saved.
In Kings' Byways Page 5