[CHAPTER XX.
THE ARREST.]
I climbed the ladder and looked out of the open window on the great, serene and silent scene spread out before me. Great gulfs of shadows lay under the trees, a gentle breeze stirred the branches, and their upturned leaves glimmered silvery in the moonlight which covered the sleeping earth as with a garment.
I undressed and knelt beside the little bed and prayed my first prayer.
Thirty-seven years had slipped past me—my wavy-brown hair was already sprinkled with white; lines of care were on my face; girlhood gone; the marks of age had come; I was reaching out toward two score, and I had never prayed. Of course I had read the prayer-book, and in church I had mumbled certain words; but now for the first time I fell on my knees and buried my face in my hands. The hot tears came quick and fast, and trickled through my fingers; but they were tears of joy, not sorrow. At last life seemed to show a gleam of meaning! There was purpose in it all, God’s purpose! I prayed that I might do His will. The only words that came to my sobbing throat, and these I said over and over again, were: “Oh, give me a clean heart and a right spirit!”
I got into bed, which never before seemed so welcome. I seemed to relax every muscle and abandon myself to rest. I heard the far-away hooting of a whippoorwill—the gentle murmur of the winds as they sighed through the branches seemed to sing me a sweet lullaby. I imagined I was again a child; so sweet and perfect was the rest; and I remembered the gentle baritone voice of The Man as he had said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed——” I was asleep.
It seemed as if I had not slept ten minutes, but I found afterward five hours had passed, when I was startled by a wild yelling, and a coarse, grating, brutal voice that shouted:
“Now we have got ’em—pound in the door!”
Bang—crash it went, and the tramping of a score of feet I heard below. I jumped from bed, and without a thought as to what I would do grabbed the end of the ladder, and in a twinkling it was on the floor under my feet.
“There, boys, didn’t I tell you? They’re up-stairs. There, Bill, why in hell didn’t you ketch that ladder afore they pulled it up, or else go up it?”