The Right Knock

  CHAPTER III.

  "Such is the world, understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on highest loadstars."--_Carlyle._

  It was a week since the party. Mrs. Hayden had been to the opera andreturned late. Her husband was absent on a business trip, and she felt avague uneasiness come over her as she entered the room. She knew notwhy, but it seemed unusually lonely without him. She seldom went outalone, but to-night she had gone out as much to while away the time asto hear the music. After paying her usual visit to the nursery, she wentto bed, but slept little for several hours.

  About 4 o'clock she was awakened by stifling fumes of smoke andstartling cries of fire. Was it too late? She sprang up and ran to thenursery stairs, but the scorching flames met her, and she retreated tothe window, shrieking for help, only to get a glimpse of someone throughthe smoke climbing toward her.

  "Hold on!" cried the fireman, and reached out his arms for her just asshe fell back fainting. Grasping her firmly, the brave man dragged herout of the window, and began his perilous descent. When about half waydown, the ladder fell, but its burden was expected, and mattress andbed-clothing saved them from what might have been worse. As it was, thefireman escaped with a few bruises and slight scorching, and Mrs.Hayden with a broken limb. First they feared she was dead, but after afew moments she revived and moaned feebly for husband and children.Little Mabel clung desperately to her mother, and sobbingly told her"only the house was burnt. Fred and Jamie were safe, and now she mustget up and be glad." Poor child, instinctively she knew the value oflife above all other things.

  "How did it happen, where did it start, and who saw it first?" were thequeries on every side. Some one down at the foot of the hill had seen atiny blue flame licking the corner of the roof. The fire alarm wastouched, the bells set to ringing, and the observers leaped up theterraced stairways and arrived at the top just as the whole house burstinto flames. The fire company had not arrived in time to do anything, asit was impossible to climb the hill with their heavy trucks, and theirhose was not long enough to reach the flames, so the house was gone.Many people had gathered from all quarters in the fashion peculiar tofire crowds, but now they had seen the spectacle, and, as there wasnothing further to see or do, they slowly dispersed.

  Mrs. Hayden and the children were removed to the hotel and a telegramsent to Mr. Hayden, informing him of the catastrophe.

  When he arrived, twelve hours later, he found his wife confined to thebed with a nervous fever and a broken limb. The children were safe andwell cared for, and though his elegant home was in ruins, John Haydenwas deeply thankful. Marion would, of course, get over the trouble, andthings were much better than they might have been, he said. So he triedto look on the bright side, and after a few cheering words and a lovingkiss he left her, to run up the hill and view the ruins.

  It was early twilight, and as he beheld the smouldering _debris_, andrealized that the comforts and luxuries, possibly the necessities oflife had gone up in the smoke that even now curled in sullen wreathsfrom the blackened heaps, he bowed his head and wept.

  It was but a moment, but that moment was the bitterest of his wholelife. He knew better than anyone else that this was probably thebeginning of financial misfortune, for a very important transaction waseven now pending that he feared would take his all. As a merchant he hadan honorable reputation and position, but this unfortunate speculationwould ruin him. Failure seemed inevitable. But he hoped to save enoughto pay every debt and still be able to live, even though in a modestway. Now he would not even get his insurance on his house, for in hisfinancial embarrassment he had failed to renew his policy, which hadexpired but few days before. He would now have little besides this spot,this beautiful hill. Yes, it was valuable, and in time could be sold forwhat it was worth, but not now, and in the meantime what should he do?How would Marion take it? Why had he not told her before he went away?But he had known it himself only a few days.

  "Oh, my dear wife, would that we could commence life as we did when wewere first married!" he groaned.

  His mind went back to the past. He looked again into her sweet, girlishface, into her clear, earnest eyes. He remembered how they had bothdesired to live a religious life, how he, having been brought up in areligious home, undertook in vain to explain the Bible where it was darkand unreasonable to her. He remembered how fruitlessly she had tried tobe converted, and that he had found even through her earnest seekingthat he had naught but the letter of religion and was also as helplessas to the manner of salvation. And then they had given up trying. Shesought, for a while, to satisfy herself by doing for others, giving hertime and energy to the poor that found her out and besieged her forfavors, while he had been satisfied to let religion alone and believewith the majority concerning the doctrines and dogmas.

  As the years went on, and prosperity came to them, he had grown more andmore indifferent, and finally, when they moved away from their earlyhome and entered a new city, they had begun a new life, as it were.

  He remembered, regretfully, that she had entered the competitive ranksof society, at his wish at first, because he thought it would add to hispopularity as a merchant and increase the number and quality of hiscustomers. Too well he remembered that the elegant parties and partycostumes were first his own instigation, and now that these were likelyto be taken away, he felt responsible for her happiness, and had asecret misgiving, born of his early religious training perhaps, ofretribution and judgment. He hoped indeed that she would be able torise above circumstances, but he was utterly at a loss to know how shewould take it, for although he knew that deep down in her heart werestill traces of the early longings, he felt vaguely there was no way tosatisfy them any more now than in the past, and probably they would onlyincrease the difficulty of finding happiness.

  John Hayden was kind-hearted and upright in all his ways, strictlyhonest and conscientious, but apt to be a little one-sided in hisjudgments, simply because, as a rule, he reasoned from one standpoint,thought in one groove. He had never considered the questions from thispoint of view, and therefore they were seriously perplexing. Like manyanother he lived within his own world, and knew naught of any other. Inthe later years of their married life he and Marion had grown a littleapart in the closest confidences, but it was caused by circumstancesmore than anything else, and notwithstanding the present misery he wassure of her love.

  "Poor girl, I must hasten back to her," he murmured, as he rose from hisuncomfortable position. "After all, I can thank God for my family, myhealth, my honor, for no matter how much _we_ may suffer, no one elseshall suffer through me."

  There was a little pang at the thought of the privations in possiblestore for the family through him, but he had resolved to make the bestof circumstances and be brave as possible. Once more he looked over thescene, but there were only dim black shadows in the starlight, and hewent down toward the twinkling lights of the city below.