CHAPTER XXII. ONE MINUTE'S WORK.
Marion struck out into the darkness, caring little which way she went; she had rarely been so wrought upon; her veins seemed to glow with fire. What difference did it make? she asked herself. If there was nothing at all in it, why not let Ruth amuse herself by joining the church and playing at religion? It would add to her sense of dignity, and who would be hurt by it?
There was a difficulty in the way. Turn where she would, it confronted Marion during these days. There was a solemn haunting "if" that would not be put down. What if all these things were true? She by no means felt so assured as she had once done: indeed, the foundations for her disbelief seemed to have been shaken from under her during the last week.
Remember, she had never spent a week with Christians before in her life; not, at least, a week during which she was made to realize all the time that they were Christians; that they stood on a different platform from herself.
Now, as she tramped about through the darkening woods, meeting constantly groups of people on their way home from the meeting, hearing from them snatches of what had been said and sung, she suddenly paused, and so vivid was the impression that for long afterward she could not think of it without feeling that a voice must certainly have spoken the words in her ear. Yet she recognized them as a sentence which had struck her from Dr. Pierce's sermon in the morning. "God honors his gospel, even though preached by a bad man; honors it sometimes to the saving of a soul. But think of a meeting between the two! the sinner saved and the sinner lost, who was the means of the other's salvation." It had thrilled Marion at the time, with her old questioning thrill: What if such a thing were possible! Now it came again.
She stood perfectly still, all the blood seeming to recede from and leave her faint with the strange solemnity of the thought! What if she had this evening been preaching the gospel to Ruth! What if the words of hers should lead Ruth to think, and to hunt, and to find this light that those who were not blind—if there were any such—succeeded in finding! What if, as a result of this, she should go to heaven! and what if it were true that there was to be a judgment, and they two should meet, and then and there she should realize that it was because of this evening's talk that Ruth stood in glory on the other side of the great gulf of separation! What kind of a feeling would that be?
"Oh, if I only knew," she said aloud, sitting suddenly down on a fallen log, "if I only knew that any of these things were so! or if I could only get to imagining that they were, I would take them up and have the comfort out of them that some of these people seem to get, for I have so little comfort in my life. It can not be that it is all a farce, such as Ruth's horrid resolve would lead one to think; that is not the way that Dr. Vincent feels about it; it is not the way that Dr. Pierce preached about it this morning; it is not the way that man Bliss sings about it. There is more to it than that. My father had more than that. If he could only look down to-night and tell me whether it is so, whether he is safe and well and perfectly happy. Oh, it seems to me if I could only be sure, sure beyond a doubt that God did give an eternal heaven to my father, I could love him forever for doing that, even though there is a hell and I go to it." Within the tent they were having talk that would seem to amount to very little. Even Eurie appeared to be subdued, and to have almost nothing to say. Ruth was roused from the half stupor of astonishment into which Marion's unexpected words had thrown her by hearing Flossy say, "Oh, Ruth, I forgot to tell you something; Mrs. Smythe stopped at the door on Saturday evening before you came home; her party leave for Saratoga to-morrow morning, and she wanted to know whether any of us would go with them." "Did you tell her I was going?" Ruth asked, quickly. It was utterly distasteful to her to think of having Mrs. Smythe's company. She did not stop to analyze her feelings; she simply shrank from contact with Mrs. Smythe and from others who were sure to be of her stamp.
"No," Flossy said, "I did not know what you had decided upon; I said it was possible that you might want to go, but some one joined us just then and the conversation changed: I did not think of it again." "I am glad you didn't," Ruth said, emphatically. "I don't want her society. I won't go in the morning if I am to be bored with that party; I would rather wait a week." "They are going in the morning train," Eurie said; "I heard that tall man who sometimes leads the singing say so. He said there was quite a little party to go, among them a party from Clyde, who were en route for Saratoga. That is them, you know; nearly all of them are from Clyde. 'Oh, yes,' the other man said; 'we must expect that. Of course there is a froth to all these things that must evaporate toward Saratoga, or some other resort. There is a class of mind that Chautauqua is too much for.' Think of that, Ruthie, to be considered nothing but froth that is to evaporate!" "Nonsense!" Ruth said, sharply. She seemed to consider that an unanswerable argument, and in a sense it is. Nevertheless Eurie's words had their effect; she began to wish that letter unwritten, and to wish that she had not said so much about Saratoga, and to wish that there was some quiet way of changing her plans. In fact, an utter distaste for Saratoga seemed suddenly to have come upon her. Conversation palled after this; Marion came in, and the four made ready for the night in almost absolute silence. The next thing that occurred was sufficiently startling in its nature to arouse them all. It was one of those sudden, careless movements that this life of ours is full of, taking only a moment of time, and involving consequences that reached away beyond time, and death, and resurrection.
"Eurie," Ruth had said, "where is your head ache bottle that you boast so much of? I believe I am going to have a sick headache." "In my satchel," Eurie answered, sleepily. She was already in bed. "There is a spoon on that box in the corner; take a tea-spoonful." Another minute of silence, then Eurie suddenly raised her head from the pillow and looked about her wildly. The dim light of the lamp showed Ruth, slowly pulling the pins from her hair.
"Did you take it?" she asked, and her voice was full of eager, intense fright. "Ruth, you didn't take it!" "Yes, I did, of course. What is the matter with you?" "It was the wrong bottle. It was the liniment bottle in my satchel. I forgot. Oh, Ruth, Ruth, what will we do? It is a deadly poison." Then to have realized the scene that followed you should have been there to sea. Ruth gave one loud shriek that seemed to re-echo through the trees, and Eurie's moan was hardly less terrible. Marion sprang out of bed, and was alert and alive in a moment.
"Ruth, lie down; Eurie, stop groaning and act. What was it? Tell me this instant." "Oh, I don't know what it was, only he said that ten drops would kill a person, and she took a tea-spoonful." "I know where the doctor's cottage is," said Flossy, dressing rapidly. "I can go for him." And almost as soon as the words were spoken she had slipped out into the darkness.
Ruth had obeyed the imperative command of Marion and laid herself on the bed. She was deadly pale, and Eurie, who felt eagerly for her pulse, felt in vain. Whether it was gone, or whether her excitement was too great to find it, she did not know. Meantime, Marion fumbled in Flossy's trunk and came toward them with a bottle. "Hold the light, Eurie; this is Flossy's hair-oil. I happen to know that it is harmless, and oil is an antidote for half the poisons in the world. Ruth, swallow this and keep up courage; we will save you." Down went the horrid spoonful, and Marion was eagerly at work chafing her limbs and rubbing her hands, hurrying Eurie meantime who had started for the hotel in search of help and hot water.
That dreadful fifteen minutes! Not one of them but that thought it was hours. They never forgot the time when they fought so courageously, and yet so hopelessly, with death. Ruth did not seem to grow worse, but she looked ghastly enough for death to have claimed her for his victim; and Flossy did not return. Eurie came back to report a fire made and water heating, and seizing a pail was about to start again, when her eye caught the open satchel, and a bottle quietly reposing there, closely corked and tied over the top with a bit of kid; she gave a scream as loud as the first had been.
"What is the matter now?" Marion said. "Eurie, do have a little common sense." "She didn't take it!" burst forth Eurie. "It is all a mistake. It was the right bottle. Here is the other, corked, just as I put it." Before this sentence was half concluded Ruth was sitting up in bed, and Marion, utterly overcome by this sudden revulsion of feeling, was crying hysterically. There is no use in trying to picture the rest of that excitement. Suffice it to say that the events of the next hour are not likely to be forgotten by those who were connected with them. Eurie came back to her senses first, and met and explained to the people who had heard the alarm, and were eagerly gathering with offers of help. There was much talk, and many exclamations of thankfulness and much laughter, and at last everything was growing quiet again.
"I can not find the doctor," Flossy had reported in despair. "He has gone to Mayville, but Mr. Roberts will be here in a minute with a remedy, and he is going right over to Mayville for the doctor." "Don't let him, I beg," said Marion, who was herself again. "There is nothing more formidable than a spoonful of your hair-oil. I don't know but the poor child needs an emetic to get rid of that. Eurie, my dear, can't you impress it on those dear people that we don't want any hot water? I hear the fourth pail coming." It was midnight before this excited group settled down into anything like quiet. But the strain had been so great, and the relief so complete, that a sleep so heavy that it was almost a stupor at last held the tired workers.
Now, what of it all? Why did this foolish mistake of bottles, which might have been a tragedy, and was nothing but a causeless excitement, reach so far with its results?
Let me tell you of one to whom sleep did not come. That was the one who but half an hour before had believed herself face to face with death! What mattered it to her that it was a mistake, and death no nearer to her, so far as she knew, than to the rest of the sleeping world?
Death was not annihilated—he was only held at bay. She knew that he would come, and that there would be no slipping away when his hand actually grasped hers. She believed in death; she had supposed herself being drawn into his remorseless grasp. To her the experience, so far as it had led her, was just as real as though there had been no mistake.
And the result? She had been afraid ! All her proper resolutions, so fresh in her mind, made only that very afternoon, had been of no more help to her than so much foam. She had not so much as remembered in her hour of terror whether there was a church to join. But that there was a God, and a judgment, and a Savior, who was not hers, had been as real and vivid as she thinks it ever can be, even when she stands on the very brink.
Oh, that long night of agony! when she tossed and turned and sought in vain for an hour of rest. She was afraid to sleep. How like death this sleeping was! Who could know, when they gave themselves up to the grasp of this power, that he was not the very death angel himself in disguise, and would give them no earthly awakening forever?
What should she do? Believe in religion? Yes. She knew it was true. What then? What had Marion said? Was that all true? Aye, verily it was; she knew that, too. Had she not stood side by side with death?
The hours went by and the conflict went on. There was a conflict. Her conscience knew much more than her tongue had given it credit for knowing that afternoon. Oh, she had seen Christians who had done more than join the church! She had imagined that that act might have a mysterious and gradual change on her tastes and feelings, so that some time in her life, when she was old, and the seasons for her were over, she might feel differently about a good many things.
But that hour of waiting for the messenger of death, who, she thought, had called her, had swept away this film. "It is not teaching in Sunday-school," said her brain. "It is not tract distributing; it is not sewing societies for the poor; it is not giving or going. It is none of these things, or any of them, or all of them, as the case may be, and as they come afterward. But first it is this question: Am I my own mistress? do I belong to myself or to God? will I do as I please or as he pleases? will I submit my soul to him, and ask him to keep it and to show me what to do, or when and where to step?" The night was utterly spent, and the gray dawn of the early sweet summer morning was breaking into the grove, and still Ruth lay with wide-open eyes, and thought. A struggle? Oh dear, yes! Such an one as she had never imagined. That strong will of hers, which had led not only herself but others, yield it, submit to other leadership, always to question: Is this right? can I go here? ought I to say that? What a thing to do! But it involved that; she knew it, felt it. She might have been blind during the week past, but she was not deaf.
How they surged over her, the sentences from one and another to whom she had listened! They were not at play, these great men. What did it mean but that there was a life hidden away, belonging to Christ? She felt no love in her heart, no longing for love, such as poor little Flossy had yearned for. She felt instead that she was equal to life; that the world was sufficient for her; that she wanted the world; but that the world was at conflict with God, and that she belonged to God, and that she should give herself utterly into his hands.
Moreover, she knew there was coming a time when the world, and Saratoga, and the season, with its pleasures, would not do. There was grim death!—he would come. She could not always get away. He was coming every hour for somebody around her. She must—yes, she must get ready for him. It would not do to be surprised again as she had been surprised last night. It was not becoming in Ruth Erskine to live so that the sound of death could palsy her limbs and blanch her cheek and make her shudder with fear. She must get where she could say calmly: "Oh, are you here? Well, I am ready." It was just as the sun which was rising in glory forced its smiles in between the thick leaves of the Chautauqua birds' nests, and set all the little birds in a twitter of delight, that Ruth raised herself on her elbow and said aloud, and with the force that comes from a determined will that has decided something in which there has been a struggle: "I will do it."
