The Devil's Garden by W. B. Maxwell

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The place was a wilderness, a solitude, the dead and barren landscape
of dreams--quite empty, unoccupied, a place that even ghosts would
shun. He sat thinking, and listening; and soon it occurred to him
that, though all seemed so dead and so silent, this place was really
full of life. He heard the faint buzz of belated bees questing in
tufts of heather or foxglove bells, a bat flitted over his head, some
small furred thing scuttled past his feet; and in the air there were
thousands of winged insects, whose tiny voices one could hear by
straining one's ears. Listening intently for such murmurs, he thought:
"Perhaps really and truly one has not any right to kill the smallest
of these gnats. All that stuff about self-protection, an' struggle for
existence, is just fiddle-de-dee in so far's God's concerned. He never
meant it, an' never will approve of it. It's just nature's hatefulness
and cruelty--not permitted or intended, an' to be put right some day."

It grew darker and darker, and the shadows rose all round him till he
was like a man who had climbed out of the gray sea upon the only rock
that was not yet submerged. When he got up presently and looked down
at the hollow where he believed the corpse had lain, he could no
longer see it. It was gone, lost in shadow.

Then he knelt upon his rock, and prayed--offered up the last agonized
prayer of a despairing human soul. "O God--have mercy on me just so
far's this. Don't let me die hopeless. I've submitted myself into Your
hands. I don't complain. I don't question. I'm going to do it. But
don't send me out in total darkness. Give me a blink of light--just
one blink o' light before I go."

Was it this that had been wanted, this that had been waited for--the
true acknowledgment, the true submission, the cry for mercy of the
repentant creature who has already tasted more than the bitterness of
death?

He rose from his knees, and without once looking back left the rocks
and came through the thicket to the ride. It grew darker, the clouds
dropped still lower, and the wind again blew fierce and strong. He
left the broad ride and sauntered along one of the narrow tracks. He
could hear the wind as it tore through slender branches high above his
head, but down here it did not touch him; and he strolled on slowly,
feeling extraordinarily calm, full of a great reverence and wonder,
not noticing external things because he wished to maintain this
strange inward peace.

Then soon the voluminous but indefinite sensations of mental
tranquillity concentrated their soothing messages to make the comfort
of one definite thought, and Dale said to himself: "Christ has
returned to me."

And then he saw Him--not for an instant believing that he really saw
Him, that he had passed from the order of common facts into the realm
of miracles, that the usual laws of heaven had been broken by a
special material manifestation, or anything of that sort; but that he
saw Him with the beautifully clear visualization for which he had
longed and prayed. And it seemed to him that the power of his thoughts
took a splendid leap, and that he could now understand everything that
hitherto had been unintelligible and inexplicable. Very God, and very
man. Yes, this was the man--a man after his own heart--the comrade
with whom one could work shoulder to shoulder and never know
fatigue--the unfailing friend whom one dared not flatter or slobber
over, but the grip of whose hand gave self-respect and the glance of
whose eyes swept the evil out of one's breast. And this was God
too--the only God that men can worship without fear; Whose power is so
great that it makes one's head split to think of, and Whose love is
greater than His power.

And the voice of Christ seemed to speak to him, not by the channel of
crudely imagined words, but in a transcendent joy that was sent
thrilling through and through him.

"Then I need not despair," he said to himself. "That was the voice of
Christ telling me to hope."

He strolled on with bowed head, and remembered the night when he sat
in Mr. Osborn's little room, staring at the carpenter's bench, and
struggling between belief and doubt. He had said: "I want to be saved.
I want the day when you can tell me I have gained everlasting
salvation." And Mr. Osborn had answered him: "The day will come; but
it will not be my voice that tells you."

It was dark, but he did not mind the darkness. He walked on, not
knowing where he was going, and time passed without his thinking Of
the lateness of the hour. He had forgotten his wife and his home; he
had forgotten Norah; he had forgotten all his pain.

Then the odd and unexpected character of an external object made an
impression sufficiently strong to rouse him from his reverie, and he
thought dreamily: "What is that? Why, yes, it is what I was asking
for--a blink of light."

Suddenly, straight in front of him, he saw the gleam again. What could
it be? Then something right ahead, in the darkness of the trees, a
bright flicker--as might be made by a man waving a lantern. There it
was again, but brighter than before, quite a long way off. And he
walked on faster.

Then, looking up, he saw a red glow in the sky, and he thought: "The
heath is on fire." He walked faster, saw a column of crimson smoke and
a great tongue of flame above the pine trees, and thought: "It is much
nearer than the heath. It must be right on the edge of the wood."

He ran now, and soon the track was brightly lighted and confused
sounds grew plain--shouting of voices, the galloping of a horse, the
clamorous ringing of a bell. The trees opened out and he was running
along the high ground above those broken fences, looking down at the
Orphanage gardens, at men clustered like black ants, at solid
buildings that seemed to send forth sheets, lakes, and seas of flame.

He rushed down the slope, burst through wooden barriers and leafy
screens, shouting as he came. In the glare on the upper terraces there
were many people--men, women, children; some of the men vainly
endeavoring to fix and work unused hose-pipes; others dragging away
furniture, curtains, carpets that lay in heaps near the central hall;
the greatest number of them struggling with ladders, advancing and
recoiling in front of the low block at the further end of the
building.

"Are they all out?" shouted Dale. "Have they all been got out?"

Terror-stricken voices answered as he passed. "There's seven they
can't get at.... Seven have been left.... They're the little ones."

And running in the fiery glare, he thought: "Yes, mercy has been
vouchsafed me. This is my chance."

All things were plain to him; there was nothing that he could not
understand. This fire must have broken out in the low block he had
passed, and at first it seemed insignificant; as a precautionary
measure the girls were fetched out of that block; the bell had been
rung, and a messenger was sent galloping to summon the engine and
brigade which would not arrive for an hour; and the stupid guardians
of the place had wasted precious minutes in what they considered
another precaution only, carrying furniture from the big hall. Nothing
was done at the further block, because that appeared to be in no
danger. They hadn't reckoned with the wind. The wind had sent the fire
licking up the woodwork, dancing over slates and tiles, springing at
the roof of the hall; and all at once the far block was involved. A
furnace blast of flame leaped at it, billowing waves of smoke rolled
through it; and it crackled and screamed and blazed. The bigger girls
had just time to escape; but the children, seven of the smallest, were
left on the upper floor.

"It's Mr. Dale. Oh, Mr. Dale, 'tis pitiful. You can hear 'em squealin'
up theer. Oh, Mr. Dale, sir, what can us do?"

The heat was tremendous, and as the men came staggering back they
pushed him away. Then they clustered round him, each face like a fiery
mask, and yelled to make themselves heard above the noise of the wind
and the flames, the clatter of failing stone, and the cries of
hysterical women.

He broke free from them, stood alone near the burning shell of the
veranda, and hoarsely shouted from there. "Come on, ma lads. Give me
the ladder. Don't shrink or skulk. Come on. If I can stan' it--so can
you. Fetch those floor-rugs."

He was almost breathless, but joy seemed to give force to his laboring
lungs. He was thinking: "Mercy has been shown. I have been reserved
for this. Instead of destroying that one child, I am to save these
other children."

He had no doubt; he knew that he would do it. Nothing could stop the
man who was doing his appointed work.

To all others the thing seemed impossible. He had taken off his jacket
and put it over his head, and the women became silent when they saw
him climb high on the ladder and spring blindfold through the flames.
The ladder fell with half its length on fire and then smoldered like a
shattered torch. Then they saw clouds of smoke pouring outward from a
window; and the flames on the balcony lessened and grew dim, as if
choked by the smoke. Then there came a shout, and the men with the
stretched rug moved stanchly to his call.

He was out again on the balcony, with a child in his arms.

"That's one," he shouted, as he dropped her to the men below. "I
b'lieve they're all alive."

So he came and went, rapid and sure, carrying his burdens. "That's
two.... That's three.... That's four. They're well-nigh
suffocated--but they're alive." He crawled on the floor to find them,
snatched the blankets and sheets off the beds, wrapped them from head
to foot. "That's five.... That's six. She has fainted--but she's
alive."

On the balcony the red-hot metal had burned his feet nearly to the
bone, his blistered hands were big and soft as boxing gloves, even the
air in his lungs was on fire. While he crawled and groped between the
beds for the last of the children, the floor began to bulge and sag,
and fragments of the plaster ceiling rained upon his head and back.

"That's seven. Fainted. Wants air.... Still alive."

They all shouted to him. "Don't go back, sir. There's no more. You've
got 'em all out now. Oh, sir, don't go back."

But he went, gasping for breath, and muttering, "May be another.
P'raps there's another. Better see."

He had got to the middle of the room when the floor gave way under
him; and almost at the same moment there was a crash and the whole
roof fell in. He went down amid the sudden wreck, down to a narrow
couch of wood and stone, where he lay and still could think. He was
pinned with an iron beam across his chest, in darkness, with the roar
of the flames just above his head; smashed, mangled, roasting; but
still full of a joy and hope that obliterated pain. He whispered
faintly: "O God the Father and God the Holy Ghost, accept this my
expiation."

And he whispered again.

"This fire has cleansed me. O Christ, take me to Thy bosom, white and
spotless as the driven snow."

That was his last thought. There came another crash, a rending pang,
and peace.

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