IV. SAVED AS BY FIRE

It was a narrow, gloomy yard, paved with rough flags dinted and worn by the wheels of traffic and the tread of many feet. On one side stood the factory, cheerless and gray, with its storied heights, and long rows of windows that on summer evenings flamed with the reflected caresses of the setting sun, and in the shorter days of winter threw the light of their illuminated rooms like beacon fires across the miles of moor. Flanking the factory were sheds and outbuildings and warehouses, through the open doors of which were seen skips and trollies and warps, and piles of cloth pieces ready for the market in the great city beyond the hills. Within a stone's-throw the sluggish river crept along its blackened bed, no longer a stream fresh from the hills, but foul with the service of selfish man.

It was breakfast hour, and the monotonous roar of machinery was hushed, no longer filling the air with the pulsations of mighty manufacture. The thud of the ponderous engines had ceased; the deafening rattle of the looms was no more heard; a myriad spooming spindles were at rest. A dreamy sound of falling waters floated from the weir, and the song of birds in a clump of stunted trees made music in the quiet of the morning light—it was Nature's chance to teach man in one of the brief pauses of his toil, had he possessed the ear to hearken or the heart to understand.

Beneath the shelter of a ‘lean-to’ a group of men sat, hurriedly gulping their morning meal, finding time, all the same, for loud talk and noisy chaff. They were prosaic, hard-faced men, with lines drawn deeply beneath their eyes, and complexions sallow, despite the breezes of the hills among which they were reared. From childhood they had been the slaves of labour; the bread they ate was earned by sweat and sorrow, while their spare hours were given to boisterous mirth—the rebound of exacting toil. Two or three were conning the betting news in a halfpenny paper of the previous evening, and talking familiarly of the chances of the favourites, while others disputed as to sentiments delivered in the last great political speech.

In one corner sat Amos Entwistle, the butt of not a little mirth from a half-dozen sceptics who had gathered round him. They addressed him as ‘Owd Brimstone,’ and made a burlesque of his Calvinistic faith, one going so far as to call him ‘a glory bird,’ while another declared he was ‘booked for heaven fust-class baat payin' for his ticket.’

‘Why should he pay for his ticket,’ asked an impudent-looking youth, ‘when th' Almeety's gan it him? Th' elect awlus travels for naught, durnd they, Amos?’

‘Thaa's more Scripture larning abaat thee nor I thought thaa had,’ said Amos, withdrawing his wrinkled face from the depths of a can out of which he was drinking tea. ‘But it's noan knowledge 'at saves, Dan; th' devils believe and tremble.’

‘But I noan tremble, Amos; I geet too mich brimstone i' yon fire hoile to be flayed at what yo' say is “resarved” for them as isn't called.’

(Dan's occupation was to feed the boiler fires.)

‘If thaa'rt noan flayed, that doesn't say thaa hasn't a devil,’ replied Amos, again raising the can to his lips.

‘Well, I'm noan to blame if a' cornd help miself, am I?’

But Amos remained silent.

‘Aw say, Amos,’ said a thoughtful-looking man, ‘aw often wonder if thaa'll be content when thaa geets up aboon to see us lot in t'other shop.’

‘Yi! and when we ax him, as th' rich mon axed Lazarus, for a sooap (drink) of summat cool, it'll be hard lines, wirnd (will not) it, owd lad, when thaa cornd help us?’ asked the man who sat against him.

‘Happen it will,’ replied Amos. ‘But thaa knows there'll be no sharin' baggin (tea or refreshment) there. Them as hed oil couldn't gi' it to them as hed noan.’

‘Then thaa'll not come across the gulf and help us, Amos?’

‘Nowe!’ cried Dan. ‘He'd brun (burn) his wings if he did.’

And at this all laughed, save the thoughtful man who put the first question to the old Calvinist.

‘Thaa knows, Amos,’ said he, ‘I look at it i' this way. Supposin' th' factory geet o' fire this mornin', an' yo' hed th' chance o' savin' that lass o' mine that back-tents for yo', yo'd save her, wouldn't yo'?’

‘Yi, lad, if I'd th' chance,’ replied Amos.

‘Then haa is it yo're so mich better nor Him, as yo' co th' Almeety, for yo' reckon He'll noan save some o' us?’

‘I tell thee I'd save th' lass if I hed th' chance. We con nobbud do what we're permitted to do. We're only instruments in th' Almeety's honds.’

‘But isn't th' Almeety His own Measter?’

‘So He is, but His ways are past findin' out.’

‘An' thaa means to say thaa'd save my lass, and th' Almeety wouldn't save me?’

‘It's decrees, thaa knows, lad, it's decrees,’ said Amos, unshaken by the argument of his friend.

‘Then there's summat wrang with th' decrees, that's all, Amos. There's been a mistak' somewhere.’

‘Hooist, lad! hooist! durnd talk like that. Woe to th' mon that strives wi' his Maker.’

‘If thi Maker's th' mon thaa maks Him aat to be, I'm noan partic'lar abaat oather His woes or His blessin's.’

‘No more am I,’ cried Dan, as he stood up and stretched himself with a yawn. ‘We mud as well mak' most o' life if we're booked for t'other shop, though mine's a warm un i' this world, as yo' all know.’

‘It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,’ said Amos, in solemn tones.

And the whistle sounded for the renewal of work, and the men dispersed.

The clock in the factory yard pointed to the hour of ten, and four hundred toilers were sweating out their lives in one of Manufacture's minting-shops of wealth. Overhead the shafting ran in rapid revolutions, communicating its power and speed by lengths of swaying, sagging belts to the machinery that stood so closely packed on the vibrating floors, and between which passed, and behind which stood, the operatives, unconscious of danger, and with scarce a care than how to keep pace with the speed of steam and the flying hours. Every eye was strained, and every nerve as highly strung as the gearing of the revolving wheels, the keen glances of the overlookers seeing to it that none paused until the hour of release.

The atmosphere was heavy, the temperature high, and flecks of ‘fly’ floated on the stifling air, wafted by the breath born of whirring wheels, and finding rest on the hair of women and the beards of men until the workers looked as though they were whitened by the snows of a premature decay.

Women and girls sang snatches of songs, and bits of old familiar airs, with no accompaniment but the roar and rattle around, their voices unheard save when some high-pitched note was struck; and others found odd moments when by lip-signs and dumb show they communicated with their fellow-workers.

Men and women, boys and girls, passed and repassed one another in narrow alleys and between revolving machinery, crushing together without sense of decency, and whispering hastily in one another's ear some lewd joke or impure word, the moisture from their warm flesh mingling with the smell of oil and cotton, and their semi-nude forms offering pictures for the realistic pen of a Zola or a Moore.

It was but one of the laps in the great race of competition where steam contends with human breath, and iron is pitted against flesh and blood. Over the hills were other factories where the same race was going on, where other masters were competing, and other hands were laying down life that they themselves and their little ones might live—examples of the strange paradox that only those can save their lives who lose them. Outside was pasturage and moorlands, and the dear, sweet breath of heaven, the flowers of the field, the song of birds, the yearning bosom of Nature warm with love towards her children. Yet here, within, was a reeking house of flesh—not the lazar ward of the city slum, but the sweating den of a competitive age.

In the top story of the factory Amos was walking to and fro among his roving frames, and dividing his time between hurried glances at his workers and a small greasy tract he held in his hand, entitled ‘An Everlasting Task for Arminians.’ Turning aside for a moment to drive some weary operative with a word as rough as a driver uses to his over-driven horse, he would return to the ‘Everlasting Task,’ and cull some choice sentence or read some twisted text used to buttress up the Calvinistic creed. Reading aloud to himself the words—‘Real Christian charity is swallowed up in the Will of God, nor is it in its nature to extend itself one step beyond, nor desire one thing contrary to, the glory of Jehovah. All the charity we possess beyond this may be properly called fleshly charity’—he lifted his eyes to see two of his ‘back-tenters’ playing behind the frames, and his real Christian charity displayed itself in pulling their ears until they tingled and bled, and in freely using his feet in sundry kicks on their shins. And yet, wherein was this man to blame? Was he not what commerce and Calvinism had made him?

The finger of the clock in the factory yard was creeping towards the hour of eleven, when a smell, ominous to every old factory hand, was borne into the nostrils of Amos. In a moment his ‘Everlasting Task’ was thrust into his shirt-breast, and he ran towards the door from which the stairway of the room descended.

No, he was not mistaken, the smell was the smell of fire, and scarcely had he gone down a half-dozen steps before he met a man with blanched face, who barely found breath to say:

‘Th' scutchin' room's ablaze.’

Amos carried a cool head. His religion had done one thing for him: it had made him a fatalist, and fatalists are self-contained.

In a moment he took in the whole situation. He knew that the stairways would act as a huge draught, up which the flames from the room below would bellow and blaze. He knew, too, that all way of escape being cut off below, screaming women and girls, maddened with fright, would rush to the topmost room of the mill, where probably they would become a holocaust to commerce. He knew, too, that those who sought the windows and let themselves down by ropes and warps would lose their presence of mind, and probably fall mangled and broken on the flag floor of the yard, sixty or seventy feet below. All this passed through his mind ere the old watch in his fob had marked the lapse of five seconds.

In a moment his resolve was taken. He went back to the roving-room with steady step, and a face as calm as though he were standing in the light of a summer sun. By the time he reached the room the machinery was beginning to slow down, and a mad stampede was being made by the hands towards the door.

Raising his arm, he cried:

‘Go back, lasses; there's no gate daan theer. Them of us as 'as to be brunt will be brunt, and them of us as is to escape will ged off wi' our lives. Keep cool, lasses; we'll do our best; and remember 'at th' Almeety rules.’

One thing turned out in the favour of Amos and of his rovers. The mad rush from below poured into the room under him, and not, as he expected, into his own, the lower room being one where there was a better chance of escape. Seeing this, he barred up his own doorway to prevent the girls and women swarming below, where they would have made confusion worse confounded. Then he beat out one of the windows, and proceeded to fix and lower a rope by way of escape.

‘Now then, lasses,’ said he, having rapidly completed his task, ‘th' little uns fust,’ and in a moment a girl of twelve was swinging seventy feet in the air, while a crowd of roaring humanity below held its breath, and gazed with dilating eyes on the child who hung between life and death. In a minute more the spell of silence broke, and a roar, louder than before, told that the little one had touched earth without injury, save hands all raw from friction with the rope along which she had slidden.

Child after child followed; then the women were taken in their turn, and lowered safely into the factory yard.

By the time it came to the turn of Amos, the roar of the fire sounded like the distant beating of many seas along a rock-bound coast. The hot breath was ascending, and thin tongues of flame began to shoot through the floor of the room where he stood. The pungent smell of burnt cotton stung his nostrils and blinded his eyes with pain, and the atmosphere was fevered to such a degree that with difficulty he drew his breath.

His turn had come, but was he the last in the room? Something told him that he was not, that he must look round and satisfy himself, otherwise his duty was unfulfilled.

The tongues of flame became fiercer; he saw them running along the joints of the boarding, and feeding on the oil and waste which had accumulated there for years. He felt his hour was come. But he was calm. God ruled. No mistake could be made by the Almighty—nor could any mistake be made by himself, for was he not under Divine guidance?

Calmly he walked along the length of the room, stepping aside to escape the flame, and searching behind each roving-frame in his walk, as though to assure himself that no one remained unsaved.

Coming to the last frame, he saw the fainting form of one of his back-tenters, the very child whose ears he had so savagely pulled but an hour before.

There she lay, with her pallid, pinched face across her arm, the flames creeping towards her as though greedy to feed themselves on her young life.

In an instant Amos stepped towards the child and raised her in his arms, intending to return to the window and so seek escape. He was too late, however; a wall of fire stretched across the room, and he felt the floor yielding beneath his feet.

He was still calm and self-contained. He thought of Him who was said to dwell in devouring flames, and was Himself a consuming fire. He thought of the three Hebrew youths and the sevenfold-heated furnace. He thought of the One who was the wall of fire to His people, and he was not afraid.

On swept the blaze. In a few moments he knew the roof must follow the fast-consuming floor. Still he was calm. He stepped on to one of the stone sills to secure a moment's respite, and he cried in an unfaltering voice, ‘The Lord reigneth. Let His will be done.’

Frantic efforts were being made by the crowd below to recall Amos, who had been seen to disappear from the window into the room. His name was shouted in wild and entreating cries, and men reared ladders, only to find them too short, while women threw up their arms and fell fainting in excitement on the ground.

On swept the flame. Still Amos held his own on the stone ledge. Grand was his demeanour—erect, despite his seventy years, clasping with a death grip the fainting child. All around him was smoke and mingling fire; but the Lord reigned—what He willed was right; in Him was no darkness at all.

Suddenly he lifted his eyes, and saw above him a manhole that led into the roof. In a moment he sprang along the frames, and passed in with his burden, and beat his way through the slates which in another minute were to fall in with the final collapse of the old factory.

Creeping along the ridge, he made his way towards the great chimney-shaft that ran up at one end of the building, and bidding the girl, who by contact with the air was now conscious, cling to his neck, the old man laid hold of the lightning-rod, and began his dangerous descent to the ground.

But he knew no fear; there was no tremor in his muscles; steadily he descended, feeling that God held his hands, and he told his Rehoboth friends afterwards, when he recounted his escape, that he felt the angels were descending with him.

When he reached the ground amid wild and passionate cries of joy, he disengaged the child from his neck, and wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt, said:

‘The Lord's will be done.’

Dr. Hale, who was standing by the side of Mr. Penrose, and who heard the saying of old Amos, turned and said:

‘Calvinism grows strong men, does it not?’

‘Yi, doctor, yo're reet,’ exclaimed old Joseph; ‘theer's no stonning agen God's will.’