The sky had now grown perceptibly darker, though it was still some hours to night; and at the moment when Bell Crawford entered the inner room of the sorceress the gathering thunder-storm burst in fury. The thunder was not as yet peculiarly heavy, and the flashes of lightning had often been surpassed in vividness; but the rain poured down in torrents and the gust of wind, which swept through the streets set windows rattling and doors and shutters banging at a rate which promised work for the carpenters. The two windows of the room looked out upon the street, though through closed blinds; and whether intentionally or inadvertently, the two in waiting drew two chairs to one of the windows, very near together, and sat there, watching the dashing rain and listening to the storm. Had there been any possibility of hearing the words spoken in the adjoining room, that possibility would now have been entirely destroyed by the noise of the storm; and whatever of curiosity either may have felt for the result of Bell's adventure, was rendered inefficient for the time. Meanwhile, something else was working of quite as much consequence.
Chances and accidents are very curious things; and those who have no belief in a Supreme Being who brings about great results by apparently insignificant agencies, must have a very difficult time of it, in reconciling the incongruous and the inadequate. Holmes, the merriest and wisest of social philosophers (when he does not run mad on the human-snake theory, as he has done in "Elsie Venner") very prettily illustrates the opposite, as to how the agency which moves the great may also perform the little, in
"The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops,
And that young earthquake t'other day was great on shaking props;"
but the opposite may be illustrated more easily, and is certainly illustrated much oftener. Not only may
"A broken girth decide a nation's fate,"
in battle; but a gnawing insignificant rat may sink a ship, and one contemptible traitor be able to disseminate poison enough to destroy a republic; while the question of whether Bobby does or does not take his top with him to school to-day, may decide whether he does or does not wander off to the neighboring pond to be drowned; and Smith's being seen to step into a billiard-room may decide the question of credit against him in the Bank discount-committee, and send him to the commercial wall, a bankrupt. That glance of unnecessary and unladylike scorn which Lady Flora yesterday cast upon a beggar-woman who accidently brushed against her costly robes on Broadway, may have lost her a rich husband, who would otherwise have been deceived until after marriage, as to her real character; and the involuntary act of courtesy of John Hawkins, stooping down to pick up the dropped umbrella of a common woman with a baby and two bundles, in a passenger-car, may make him a friend for life, worth more than all he has won by twenty-five years of hard-working industry and honesty.
In this point of view there are no "little things;" and probably he is best prepared for all the exigencies of coming life, who is ready to be the least surprised at finding a dwarfed shrub growing up from an acorn, and a mighty tree springing from the proverbial "grain of mustard seed."
Not to be prolix on this subject—let us remember one capital illustration—that of the clown and his two pieces of fireworks. No matter in what pantomime the scene occurs, as it may do for any. The clown approaches the door of a dealer in fireworks, finds no one on duty in the shop, enters, and comes out laden with pyrotechnic spoils. He takes a small rocket, fires it, and is knocked down, frightened and stunned by the unexpectedly-heavy explosion. But he recovers directly, and determines to try the experiment over again. There is one immense rocket among the collection he has brought out—one almost as long as himself and apparently capable of holding half a barrel of explosive material. He shakes his head knowingly to the audience, indicative of the fact that this is something immense and that he is going to be very careful about it. He sticks it up in the very middle of the stage, secures a light at the end of a long pole, and touches it off with great fear and trembling. The explosion which follows is exactly that of one Chinese fire-cracker; and the comically disappointed face which the clown turns to the audience is precisely the same that each individual of that audience is continually turning to another audience surrounding him, when the great and small rockets of his daily life go off with such disproportionate effect.
Perhaps it was chance that not only produced the previous circumstances of that day, but so ordered that Bell Crawford should be the first to vacate the outer room, leaving that extraordinary couple alone together. Perhaps it was chance that led them to take seats beside each other at the window, when they might so easily have found room to sit with some distance between them. Perhaps it was chance that made the lightning flash in long lines of blinding light across the sky, and sent the thunder booming and crashing above the roofs of the houses, producing that indefinable feeling that needed companionship—that "huddling together" which even the terrible beasts of the East Indian jungles show in the midst of the fearful tornadoes of that region. Perhaps it was chance that, after a moment or two of silence, induced Tom Leslie, without well knowing why he did it, to lay his open palm on his knee, and to look for a moment with a glance of inquiry, full in the eyes of the young girl who sat at his right, as if to say: "There is my open hand—we have known each other but a little while—dare you lay your hand in it?" Perhaps it was chance that made the young girl return the steady glance—then drop her eyes with so sad a look that tears might easily have been trembling under the long lashes,—color a little on cheek and brow, as if some tint of the sunrise flush had for a moment rested upon her face—then slowly reach over her right hand and let it drop and nestle into the one ready to receive it. Perhaps all these things were chance: well, let them be so set down—such "chances" are worth something in life, to those who know how to embrace them!
What have we here? Two persons who had spoken to each other for the first time, only a few hours before, and who had since held marvellously little conversation, now sitting hand in hand, their soft palms pressed close together, and every pulse of the mental and physical natures of both thrilling at the touch! Exceedingly improper!—exceedingly hurried!—exceedingly indelicate! Modesty, where were you about this time? If we have gone so fast already, how fast may we go by-and-bye? Alas, they are living people whom we have before us—not cherubim and seraphim; and they do as they please, and act very humanly, in spite of every care we can take of their morals. They have not said one word of love to each other, it is true; but the mischief seems to have been done. Nothing may have been said, in the way of a promise of marriage, capable of being taken hold of by the keenest lawyer who pleads in the Brown-Stone building; but we are not sure that ever tongue spoke to ear, or ever lip kissed back to lip, so true and enduring a betrothal as has sometimes been signed in the meeting of two palms, when not a word had been spoken and when neither of the pair had one rational thought of the future.