The flame-gatherers

by Margaret Horton Potter

“Yes. He is a weaver. He caused this loom to be built in my house, that I might occupy my idle hours in working at it. But I cannot weave evenly enough for him to sell the cloth I make. Therefore only my own garments can be fashioned from what I do,” she explained, in a dreary tone.

Oman, however, had suddenly recovered himself. “It is well, Poussa. I shall repay thy brother for thy charity. Come, I beseech thee, do not weep.” He laid a hand upon her shoulder, smiled into her eyes, and presently, in spite of herself, she was comforted; and, through Oman’s gentle words, forgot her trouble. In a little time they went to rest, Poussa lying upon her accustomed bed, Oman on the floor near the door. And both of them being weary with the day, they shortly slept.

In the first gray of morning, however, Oman was astir. While the light in the hut was still too faint for him to see clearly, he took the empty water-jar from its place, ran down through the still, shadowy hamlet to the edge of the mountain stream, into which he first plunged himself, coming out shivering and gasping, but refreshed; and then, after drying himself in the air, he replaced his tattered garments, filled his jar with water, and returned to Poussa’s hut, where a bright daylight now threw the meagre furniture into bold relief. Poussa herself still lay upon the pallet, sleeping like a child. And Oman, after looking at her for a moment with a sudden tenderness in his heart, sat himself down at the loom, and, with a thrill of independence and pleasure, set to work, first remedying and straightening the knotted and uneven warp already stretched; and then, seeing that there was plenty of yarn left for the weft, began to throw it on.

A full hour later Poussa woke to the “hock-hock-hock” of the loom, before which sat her guest of the previous evening. The shuttle was flying fast over the straight and even threads, and, under Oman’s fingers, which had lost none of their skill of five months before, the finished cloth was slowly gathering in the frame: as fine a bit of work as her brother himself could have put forth. After a moment’s staring, to wake herself from a supposed dream, Poussa, with a little cry, ran to the loom and gazed into Oman’s face.

“Thou! Thou an outcast! Thou’rt even Krishna himself!” she cried, throwing herself on her knees before him, while he ceased his work and bent over her, smiling and protesting.

“In this way I pay my debt to thee. Tell me! When I have worked all day, and have produced a piece of cloth that will bring twenty copper pieces, will he then forbear to beat thee?” he asked.

Poussa stooped over the loom, examining the work at first anxiously, then with delight. “Yes—ah yes! It is more than enough. Thou hast saved me!” and, throwing herself on the floor, she touched Oman’s feet with her brow. Then, when he had raised her up, she began, joyously, the more useful task of preparing breakfast.

Oman was true to his word. All the morning, barring the half hour in which he and Poussa broke their fast, he toiled at the loom, till Poussa’s guardian came for the expected money. The interview with him Oman undertook, making as much explanation as he saw fit, and allowing Salivan to examine his handiwork critically. Salivan was satisfied. His own vanity could not deny that the work was good. Though the man’s words were few and not overgracious, Poussa’s face, after his departure, all radiant as it was with relief and pride, doubled Oman’s reward, and he toiled from pure pleasure to the last moment of the light.

In the early afternoon Poussa, whose work began late in the day, went to the forest to gather firewood; and Oman, left alone at the loom, began to meditate. His first musings were vague: instinctive impressions rather than definite ideas; but he was too much master of this art of thought to leave them, as most Hindoos would, in embryo. As his shuttle flew in and out of the warp on the loom, so were his thoughts busy weaving a new pattern on his fabric of life. But, in his imagination, there grew two distinct possibilities, one of which must soon be made a fact, the other discarded. One was the natural existence of a man among his fellows—himself, settling quietly down in this world-sheltered spot, to weave away his life in tranquil monotony. The other presented to him a strange aspect, beginning in hardship, in loneliness, in unceasing trial and probation, and ending in—he knew not what. And perhaps just in this uncertainty lay the fascination that, from the beginning, made the harder course seem so much more attractive than the other. After all, he was not as other men; and, by the arrangement of inscrutable providence, life could never look to him as it looked to those who had been given individual lives and individual chances.

For many hours Oman’s fancy played thus with destiny; and all the while, in his inmost heart, he knew that, when the choice came, he should not hesitate. He knew that Fate enwrapped him, grim, unconquerable. And he knew that he should run the course prescribed by her, though all the temptations of humankind were placed in his way. For so much of the scheme of his life disclosed itself to him.