The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Sabine Baring-Gould

by Sabine Baring-Gould

  “And now, mother, pray for yourself.”

  Then she crossed her hands over her bosom, and bowed her head, full of self-reproach and shame; and as she prayed, the spirit of her son raised the White Flag above her and let it sail down softly, lightly over the loved head, and as it descended there fell from it as it were a dew of pale fire, and it rested on her head, and fell about her, and she sank forward with her face upon the floor. R. I. P.

  The Fireman

  There are certain men employed in iron-furnaces to work up the molten iron before it is run into moulds—these are called riddlers; they have huge rakes and spuds, which they strike into the smelted ore and work about, till all the earthy particles and those other things existing in hammered, but never found in cast iron, and the nature of which we hardly understand, are utterly burnt out. This life of the metal appears in keen scintillations on the surface, and, as soon as they are no longer visible, but the glowing matter preserves its uniform glare of ruddy white, the iron is considered quite dead, and fit to be run into moulds.

  Now, in order that a man may be a good workman, he must become part and portion of his work, and fruit of his toil must, in like manner, become so intimately united to its artificer, that in it he should really, and not metaphorically, live.

  The sculptor casts his own spirit into his carving; so that, when the framer of the statue is dead as to his body, as to his soul he lives partly in Paradise, and that part of him which he has cast into the image exists therein still; so that for centuries the artist may still do good works, when his pious handicraft excites holy aspirations in others, and thus may reap the benefit of them; he cannot be accounted dead till his handiwork is utterly destroyed.

  So also with the poet, whose soul is, in part, communicated to his writings, so as to live and move, and have its being in other men’s hearts, for many generations; and for every great and heroic act to which his words may impel them, he will reap his reward. Thus, alas! also, with the evil man of genius, whose soul, once imparted to his work, must remain fettered to it, till it has wrought out its full harvest of evil, when it will return loaded with those ghastly tare bundles to consume its reunited self.

  The iron-workers are not quite ignorant on this score, but believe that their hopes of Salvation lie in the metal they work; and the hammered iron they find bend lithely to their will, but the molten iron to be dull and lifeless; so they have obtained a strange faith concerning the metal, which I propose illustrating. There were many puddlers engaged upon a vast mast of ore,

  in a certain smelting furnace. You must know that none but the strongest and brawniest men can be employed on this work, for the fire eats into their bones and destroys them in a very few years, unless they are exceedingly powerful and healthy.

  Peter Lundy was the largest made and most muscular man at the furnace, and he worked the glowing iron with gigantic force. His breast and arms were covered with dense black hair, and most of his features were similarly concealed; where they did show, they were coppered by the heat.

  “Peter!” said another puddler, leaning half exhausted on his spud, “there goes a bright hope for you”; and he pointed to a vivid spark, burning in the wave of iron which Lundy was driving before his rake.

  “I don’t understand what you mean, Bill,” said Peter, “you’re ever a-calling them sparks our hopes.”

  “And so they be,” retorted the other. “Don’t you know that an iron founder’s hopes of Salvation lie in hard metal, and that they leave it when he puddles molten. Every spark a man brings up in that fiery ore is some grace-hour to him; an idle workman produces few; but some puddlers may toil all day, and not another will come after that, however much they stir the iron.”

  “I never heard that afore,” said Peter.

  “I s’pose you never learnt your Catechism,” replied Bill.

  “Can’t say as ever I did,” growled Lundy.

  “I have, though,” remarked a third labourer; “but never nothing about the hopes being in the sparks. That ain’t in the Catechism nowhere.”

  “Then it ought to be,” retorted Bill sententiously.

  “I have a-heard,” observed Jonas Black, an old master-man, “that there have been puddlers who’ve come by them sparkles in ungodly ways, and made money by them; they caught or raked them in afore they went out, and sold them for a mint of money. I can’t say as how I have ever tried to get them like that, myself; for the Lord will order them if we let them alone; and I never thought of turning them into money. God forbid that a man should get rid of his hopes of Salvation that way.”

  “It ain’t possible,” said Bill; “I have tried often to draw them sparks up, and they have always gone out before they reached the edge.”

  That evening, Peter Lundy walked back gloomily to his hovel. “It ain’t much I care for my hopes of Salvation,” said he to himself. “If I could only get hold of those sparkles in the iron, I’d soon swap them for a few shillings.”

  Peter had a son about twelve years old and a baby-daughter. The wife had died on giving birth to the little girl, so George was left ever at home to look after the child. Peter’s was a miserable hut, consisting of a single dirty room lighted by a window half patched with rags and wisps of straw. At the door stood the boy to greet his father.

  “There’s a stranger within, father,” said the lad, “he’s asked for a lodging here the night, when he found there was no public-house nearer than the next village; he promises to pay well.”

  Peter pushed George aside and stepped in. An elderly man in a dark brown cloak sat on the crazy chair by the fire, and warmed his thin hands over the cinders. Peter saluted him with a slouch of the head; the stranger rose and apologised for his intrusion, repeating his request for a night’s lodging.

  “There’s only one bed,” said Lundy, “and that’s at your honour’s service; but we are very poor people, and haven’t got good accommodation for gentlefolk.”

  “That does not matter,” answered the elderly man; “but master, can you not give me a little more fire, I am shivering with cold?”

  “George, shove on some peat and a few lumps of coke,” called the puddler.

  The traveller crouched over the fire, and said no more. In an hour or two he went to bed, and Peter and his children lay down on straw in a corner. The puddler did not sleep, his eyes watched the stranger by the firelight. The elderly man fidgeted about till he had disposed a packet and large purse under his pillow, and then, till he fell asleep, continually passed his hand under the bolster to assure himself of its safety. Peter soon came to the determination of robbing him and escaping with the money; as for his children, they might go to the workhouse.

  Accordingly, as soon as he was convinced of the soundness of the traveller’s sleep, he rose from his straw bed and stole on tiptoe across the room. The stranger breathed heavily in sleep, and Peter cautiously slipped his hand beneath the pillow to the purse. In doing so, he moved the old man’s head so as partially to awaken him the eyes opened and looked into Peter’s face. Instantly the puddler grasped the man’s throat and pressed his fingers tightly together while he dragged the package and purse from under the bolster with the other hand. The traveller did not struggle, but by the firelight Peter saw the old cheeks creased into a horrible laugh.

  “Ah, ah! Peter Lundy!” said the man without inconvenience from the gripe at his throat: “so you think to get that, do you?”

  The founder was startled, and dropped his arm.

  “The truth is, Peter,” continued the stranger, “I want to have a little talk with you; pray be seated; there drag over the rickety chair.”

  The elderly man drew his legs out of bed, and sat at his side, smiling benignantly at the terrified host. “Now give me back that parcel and purse,” said the mysterious traveller. Peter mechanically obeyed. “To be candid with you,” said the gentleman, “I am a bit of a naturalist, and I am in search of some curious crystals of bi-carburet of iron combined with sulphurets of alumina and cad
mium. These are only to be procured when iron is at a very high temperature in fact molten. The crystals I allude to, are easily to be recognised, from their intense brightness, but they are difficult to be procured.”

  “Impossible,” said Peter.

  “I would willingly give £20 for each specimen, and for a very perfect one, we should not quarrel about the price, Peter.”

  “I cannot get them,” growled the puddler, half frightened, half curious—“impossible.”

  “No! not impossible to a resolute heart, my friend,” pursued the naturalist undoing his parcel; “I have here a carefully prepared ointment, which I shall be glad to present to you. You would not mind stepping into the molten iron, would you Peter?”

  “Stepping in!” gasped the ironworker. “It would be instant death; I should be burned up like a wisp of straw.”

  “Not a bit, not a bit!” answered the elderly man with animation. “As I said before, a bold heart is all that is wanted; this little box of salve will preserve you from the fire. You must smear it over your body, and then you may with partial impunity wade through the fiery masses. Will you try?”

  “I will,” answered Peter after a pause.

  “There is one thing to be considered by you in the first place one thing I am bound to tell you; every time you enter the melted iron your life will be shortened by a day or so, for the ointment cannot overcome the effects of the burnt air you must inhale, so that perhaps your life will be docked of a year or two; but those years which remain you will pass in affluence instead of dire poverty. Are you content?”

  “Quite,” replied Peter Lundy. “Two years of wealth are worth a dozen in this filthy hut.”

  “I have yet another remark to make: the ointment cannot preserve you from the full agony of entering the fire, each time you wade in the iron, you will feel the same anguish as if you were being consumed in it.”

  “Give me the stuff,” said the puddler firmly.

  “Here it is then, Peter,” the stranger said, extending a tin box. “Take it and smear your body with it as high as your waist; it has no power to preserve the upper part of your body, so do not use it higher than your waist. You will find, Peter, that you cannot well sink in the liquid iron as deep as your middle, so you must provide yourself with stone shoes. Have an iron ladle in your hand, so as to catch the sparkles as they appear, but do not dip your hand in, or it will be charred to a cinder; the ointment remember, will only preserve the lower part of your body.”

  “How shall I find you, to give you the sparkles when I have got them?” asked the iron-founder.

  “That can be easily managed, my dear friend,” replied the stranger: “I shall call here the first Monday after every new moon, and purchase your spoils.”

  “Just tell me,” said Lundy, “do I give up a Hope of Salvation with each spark I sell?”

  The elderly naturalist drew his legs into the bed again, laughed quietly, and said, “You do not stick at such trifles as that, do you, Peter? Now suppose you leave me to take a quiet nap.”

  Next morning, when Peter awoke, the stranger was gone, but I here lay on the rickety chair the full purse and the tin box containing the precious unguent. A pair of stone shoes was placed by the bedside.

  It was very early still, and Peter determined on trying his luck at the furnace at once. He took an old ladle with him, slipped out of the door without awaking his son or the babe, and was soon at the foundry. No one had arrived as yet, but the iron was melted, fires having been kept up during the night, so that the ore might be ready for the puddlers. The top of the colander, like the mouth of a kiln, was open, and the fused mass glared up, the brick rim being at white heat also.

  Peter dressed his foot with the salve, and crept cautiously to the edge. The heat well-nigh overpowered him, but timidly he dipped in his foot. The white mass was of the consistency of honey, and closed over his instep. The agony of that tire smoked through every limb to his heart. He drew his foot hastily back. It was unconsumed, but red, as though it had been plunged into boiling water. Lundy now applied the ointment to the entire lower part of his body, drew on the stone shoes, shuddered for one instant on the verge, and then stepped in. He sunk at once to his middle; he writhed with torture; every fibre of his frame seemed at that moment torn and snapped; his hands slapped convulsively together; the blood burst out from his eyes, ears, and nose, and the drops hissed and danced in globules on the fiery surface. Little by little, as the first pangs passed off, Peter regained his sight and mental powers; then he took the ladle from the margin where he had left it, and waded further into the consuming heat. The hair on his arms and breast frizzled in the fiery breath.

  Lo! one bright spark kindled before him, the ladle was plunged beneath it instantly, and the scoop rose red-hot from the fluid, but the sparkle blazed in it. Peter struggled to the verge, scrambled out, filing aside the vitrified shoes, and rolled moaning and weeping on the cool stones.

  When his pains had somewhat abated, he drew his clothes over his scarlet limbs, and when the sparkle had sufficiently cooled, examined the blood-red crystal half sunk in black ore.

  Shortly after, the other puddlers came to work, and Lundy set himself to his daily task, without the vigour he usually displayed, for the heat had eaten into his marrow and sinews, and the prospect of payment for his morning’s work withdrew his thoughts from present business. Only, as each spark, burned white in the furnace when he stirred the iron with his spud, he cast an eager glance at it, and, but for the presence of his companions, would have plunged in again.

  Next time that iron was being smelted, Peter ventured once more, and obtained two or three small crystals, which he treasured along with the first, in a cupboard at home. Lundy’s skin had been copper-hued before, now it assumed a fierce red tinge, and his black beard and whiskers were singed to the roots. His eyes began to suffer and became blood-shot, brows and lashes were burnt off, and he only preserved the hair of his head by wearing a broad felt hat, which browned after the first exposure to the fire, and fell to pieces like tinder after the second. The pain never abated, so that every time Peter entered the molten iron the same crushing agony obliterated for the moment senses and reason; but his powers of endurance increased, so that, after having made several trials, he was able to support for ten minutes the all but overwhelming torture.

  On the first Monday after the new moon, late at night, the stranger tapped at the window, and Peter sold him the crystals he had obtained.

  “You bare up bravely, master,” said the naturalist; “I do not mind paying double for that very line specimen you will soon be a rich man, that you will, Peter!”

  “How many shall you want?” asked Lundy.

  “These are great rarities: I can afford to purchase all you can bring me, friend,” answered the stranger. “But I warn you, you will not be able to find them forever, there is not an endless store of them. Every puddler has a certain number, and they must be worked out, sooner or later. Better not waste them by useless puddling.”

  “What had I better do?” asked Peter.

  “I should recommend you to buy a share in the foundry, and not to stir the iron yourself; the sparks rise and vanish then without being made into profitable investments. But if you husband your opportunities, and only venture into the fluid iron whenever you want to obtain one of the crystals—why, then—they may last.”

  At midnight the elderly man withdrew, and Peter within a few days, followed his advice, and was soon considered as a well-to-do iron-master. Whence his money had come—no one could guess.

  The old hovel had been abandoned, and a small brick house was now inhabited by the iron-factor and his children. George Lundy was no model boy. Coarse and rough as his father, and endowed with much of his shrewdness, he had, moreover, some conscience and knowledge of right and wrong; his natural inquisitiveness led him soon to the conclusion that all was not right with his father, and that there was sufficient in his conduct to excite his curiosity. Peter’s frequent
visit to the old cupboard, which had been removed from the hovel, made George determine to examine its contents.

  This he was enabled to do by means of a key fitting the lock, which he found about the house, and he was surprised to discover nothing but a heap of ore containing orange prisms, piled in a corner. George stilled his curiosity for some days, fearing to provoke an outburst of his lather’s anger, by enquiring into the use of those crystals, and Peter’s temper had of late grown fiery, and a dangerous matter wherewith to tamper: with a word he would blaze forth into excesses of rage, so that the workmen at the furnace shrank with terror from him.

  Formerly he had been known as a deep-drinker, and his son had often seen him return reeling home; now, he never touched fermented liquor, but panted for water, the chilliest that could be procured; this he drank continually, and, of an evening, he would hurry to the shallow brook flowing through the vale, and lie for an hour or two in the stream.

  His skin was hot beyond feverishness, snow dissolved instantly in his hand, and, after he had once breathed on a fuchsia George kept in the window, the plant shrivelled up and died. George was determined to get at the bottom of all the mysteries connected with his father; and one evening asked him, point blank, what was the use of those saffron crystals in the cupboard?

  Peter’s fiery eyes glared ominously, and his face became of a lurid scarlet, but he subdued his rising fury and asked:

  “How know you anything about them sparkles, I’d like to know?”

  “I saw ’em in the cupboard, father,” said George. “So tell us what they be for.”

  “Yes, I will,” answered Peter. “I’ve been thinking for a long while as how I had better have two to work money-making than only one.”

  “Are them things precious stones?” asked the boy.

  “They be,” replied Peter; “they’s worth ten to twenty pounds a-piece, and I’ll sell them at that price, come Monday next.”

  “Where do you get ’em?” George enquired.