"Very good of you, I'm sure," responded the rector briefly. "They are quite steady on their brackets, I suppose, men? Now shut those doors; we don't want any draught. Be careful with the matches, everybody!"
The others had got to work first, and along their side of the wall, Anselme, Jacobs, and Enderby, the butcher, slowly lit their three lamps, when, Ringfield, busy over a refractory wick and just in the act of applying a match, in turning his head, saw directly beneath him the basket-chair and its occupant as well as the young woman in charge of it.
The shock of perceiving what was in reality more of a Thing than a person, being an unfortunate child of about nine years of age, otherwise well formed, but with a weak and hanging head enlarged very much beyond its normal size and yet with a pair of shrewd eyes and a smiling mouth, told upon his nerves. He started, leant too heavily on the bracket, and in a second the lighted lamp, as yet without a chimney, fell on the floor.
In another second the straw and decorations were all in a blaze, the barn full of smoke and commotion; and he was conscious only of himself and the rector wildly stamping, grovelling, and pushing with might and main for what seemed hours of fear and suspense. The men tore the great doors open; there were, happily, no corridors to tread, no stairs to descend; the women and children first, and then their husbands and fathers, rushed out, mostly uninjured, into the cool twilight air, and when Ringfield came to himself he found that in some way he too was outside the barn, holding on to the basket-chair, nearly hysterical from the fright he had sustained, but still endeavouring to calm the dreadful child and its nurse, both of whom were shrieking wildly.
"Angeel! Angeel!" cried the girl, and then in French: "Oh, what would they say to me if anything happened to you! It doesn't matter about me, only you, Angeel, only you!"
Ringfield looked around, dazed. The comfort, jollity, and abandon of the picnic tea were things of the past. The barn had been saved and the fire was out, but the groups of excited, tearful women and coatless, dishevelled men, the rector with one hand badly burnt, Mrs. Abercorn loudly deploring the loss of her hat and an antique bracelet—all was forlorn, changed, miserable! And all this was his fault, his doing, the result of his carelessness! He could scarcely frame the words with which to deeply lament the unfortunate accident, but his very genuine contrition softened the rector's heart even while he felt some resentment at the sudden fatality which had spoiled the day and in his own case was destined to leave a very unpleasant remembrance.
"The question is," said Mr. Abercorn, talking to Enderby and the schoolmaster, "whether we are to go on with the rest of the programme. I'm the only one, happy to say, at all injured, and already the pain is better. Plunge in, men, and get out all the burnt stuff and tidy the tables. It might have been worse; thank God, none were hurt! And we mustn't let Mr. Ringfield feel badly about it. The bracket was weak, I'm sure it was weak, and he's a stranger among us. What are you saying, Enderby? A judgment on him? Nonsense. I thought you had more sense. Ask him to remain for the evening and everything shall go on as we intended to have it."
But Ringfield did not care to stay. Everything was against him; for the first time in his life he felt himself a failure,—in the way. How had he come to be so careless? Well he knew, for the face of the dreadful child, in spite of its deformity, evinced a strong, strong, insistent resemblance to a face he knew. The dark hair and eyes, the shape of the forehead, the way the hair grew on the forehead—where had he seen it all reproduced not so very long ago? Miss Clairville's expression, colouring, and animated play of gesture lived again in this mysterious child.
About seven o'clock, just as Mrs. Abercorn's "nice little show" was beginning, he took his way home. The path lay along the darkest road he had ever seen; there was neither moon nor stars, and the blackness of a country road bordered by dense forests can only be understood by those who have travelled at such a time, and for the nine miles that he plodded stupidly along—for he declined to wait to be driven—given up to sombre and sinister thoughts, he was a most unhappy man.