Playing With Fire

by Amelia E. Barr

"I should like to go. I have long wanted to see Windermere, and I could return that way."

With his patient at Airey Hall Ian stayed two days, and on the third morning the Squire said: "Doctor, I will give you a good mount, and you can ride as far as Ambleside. You will go through a lovely land. Leave the horse at the Salutation Inn in Ambleside when you take the train. I will send a groom for it."

So Ian took the Squire's offer, for it was a lovely day in August, and everything seemed to shimmer and glow through a soft golden haze. The tender, peaceful scenes on all sides induced in him a little mood of pathos or regret. He could not help it. He had no particular reason for it; he appeared, indeed, to be in a very enviable condition. He was yet exceedingly handsome, for it takes a Scotchman fifty years to clothe his big frame, to round off the corners and soften the large features, and to make out of a gigantic block of bone and sinew a handsome, finely modeled man. He had, as far as business went, made himself twice over. He was the welcome friend and guest of the greatest scientists and physicians, and his short visits to the most exclusive drawing-rooms were regarded as great favors. Was he not happy, then? No. Regret, like a slant shadow, darkened all his sunshine, and the want of personal love left his life poor and thin on its most vital side.

Nor could he ever forget that solemnly joyful night following the day of his admission to the ministry. Like the knights of old, he had spent the midnight hours in the dark, still Kirk of Macrae, and the promises he then made and the secret, sacred joys of his espousal to the Holy Office, had been graven on his memory by a pen which no eraser can touch. Whenever he was long alone this memory shone out in every detail, and he said once, in a passion of anger at himself: "If I had been a soldier of the Queen, they would have drummed me out of the ranks. I would have deserved it—yes, I would!"

This morning the unwelcome memory returned and returned, and, in order to be rid of it, he began to pity himself for the loneliness of his life and the misfortune which had attended all his affections.

"There was old Lord Cramer, his apparent kindness was all a plot to get a little posthumous fame out of my intellect. His one thousand pounds was a miserable price for the work he proposed for me, and he tried to pass it off as a kindness. I hate the man, and I hate myself for being fooled by him. Lady Cramer—nay, I will let her go—another has judged her now. Donald, whom I idolized, nearly broke my heart, gave a son's love to a stranger, married a Spaniard and a Roman Catholic, and has not noticed me for years. I dare say Donald and that Scotchman have had many a laugh over my leaving the ministry. Jessy went to them, and she could tell them every circumstance of the event. And, though Marion writes whiles, and has called her son after me, I never see her unless she happens to be at Uncle Hector's when I go to see him. And, of course, I cannot call at Lord Cramer's house, not even to see my daughter. Was any man ever so undeservedly deserted as I am?"

He was slowly passing through a little village as he troubled his heart with these thoughts. And, as he looked at the small dark cottages wanting the usual gardens of flowers, he said to himself, "It is a mining village; there must be many of them in this locality;" and so was returning to his unprofitable musing when a tremendous explosion occurred, and the women from every cottage ran crying to the pit mouth. Ian also hastened there, and, when he said he was a physician, was taken down in the first cage. It stopped at an upper gallery and the men ran backward into the mine. Ian thought he had suddenly awakened from life and found himself in hell. He heard only cries and groans and shouts, and the running of men and their frantic calling of names. And he was spellbound at the first moment by the sight of a boy about nine years old, lying in a narrow cut of the coal, with a great block of coal across his body. His father stood beside him, his face full of unspeakable love and pity, for the mute anguish of the child was terrible. But, ere he could speak to them, there was a frenzied rush of men crying, "Fire! Fire! After-damp!" For just one minute they stood at the cut where the child lay, and called, "For God's sake, Davie, come, come, come!" and Davie shook his head slightly, and answered,

"Nay, I'll stay with the lad."

And when Ian heard these words, they smote him like a sword, and he cried out: "I have seen God's love! This hour I have seen God's love—like as a father pitieth his children—even unto death—so God pities and loves. My God, love me! Teach me how to love! I am thy faithless son, Ian; forgive me and love me!"

He was in an ecstasy, and, even as he prayed, a still, small voice ran, like a swift arrow of flame, through all the black galleries of the mine—a voice like the noise of many waters, but sweet as the music of heaven, and it spoke but one word: