“Mace, my darling!” cried Sir Mark, passionately.
“Back!” cried Gil, fiercely; “touch her not, upon your life.”
Sir Mark shrank away, appalled by the fierce gaze of the man who knelt there upon one knee, reverently arranging the garments round the dead, whom he had found comparatively untouched by the flames, but pinioned and crushed by a fallen beam. He heeded not his own sufferings, though those who stood by could see that the doublet he wore was falling from his breast in pieces; that the leather of his belt and boots had crumpled up in the intense heat; and that his hands and face were horribly scorched.
“Let me see her, let me see her,” cried a harsh voice, and the little crowd parted to let Wat Kilby crawl forward. “Is it Janet? Tell me, brave boys, is it my lass? The cursed powder has taken away my sight. Tell me, brave boys, is it my little, bright, tricksy Janet?”
“No, no, no,” moaned a piteous voice; “it is my child—my darling child. Oh, Mace, Mace, joy of my poor old heart, has it come to this?”
There was so piteous an appeal in these words—so intense, so terrible was the suffering they betokened—that the men drew back as the founder staggered to the side of the dead, let himself fall upon his knees, and there crouched with his hands clasped together in his lap, gazing helplessly down.
The remains of the Pool-house burned brightly still; the flames licked up rafter and beam; the red-hot tiles cracked and splintered and fell with a crash from time to time, sending up a whirlwind of sparks; and the blaze that lit up the Pool and forest far and near made plain, as if seen by day, the piteous group on the old lawn. But no one heeded the fire now, or dreamed of there being danger of the flying embers setting light to one or other of the powder sheds. Every thought was turned to the bereaved father; and as Sir Mark stood there, among his followers and the workpeople, one of the few unscathed by the fire, he found himself, bridegroom-elect although he had been, a person apparently of very secondary import, for next to Jeremiah Cobbe men and women gazed upon Gil Carr.
Just then the founder raised one of his trembling hands and stretched it out to reach the kerchief Gil had so lovingly placed over the mutilated face, but the latter stayed him.
“No, no,” he said in a low voice, “for your own sake no. Let us remember our darling as she was.”
The old man’s hand closed upon the scorched palm, and then he laid the other upon it and held it, gazing piteously in the other’s face.