"Save the house!"

He hurried up the staircase. In pa.s.sing he saw his mother sitting mute and tearless near his father, who lay on the sofa, whimpering.

Through a trap-door he jumped onto the roof.

"Give me the hose."

On a pitchfork they handed him the metal point of the hose. The column of water fell hissing upon the hot bricks.

He sat astride on the ridge of the roof. His clothes became hot; glimmering sparks, which came flying from the barn, settled on his hair.

Burning wounds covered his face and hands.

He felt nothing that happened to his person, but he saw and heard everything around him--his senses seemed doubled.

He saw how the sheaves flew up to the sky in fiery flames, and saw them sink down in a magnificent circle; he saw the horses and cows run out into the meadows, where they were safe between the fences; he saw the dog, half-singed, tearing at his chain.

"Unchain the dog," he called down.

He saw little graceful flames, in bluish flickering light, dancing from the roof of the barn to the neighboring shed.

"The shed is burning!" he shouted below. "Save what is in it!"

A few people hurried away to pull out the carts.

And meanwhile the column of water hissed over the roof, made its way to the rafters and splashed over the bricks. Little white clouds rose before him and disappeared, to reappear again in other places.

Then suddenly "Black Susy" came to his mind. She was standing in the farthest corner of the shed, buried among old rubbish.

A pang shot through his breast. Shall she perish now as well--she, on whom his heart had ever placed its hopes?

"Save the locomobile!" he shouted down.

But no one understood him.

The longing to bring help to "Black Susy" seized upon him so powerfully that for a moment he felt he must even sacrifice the house.

"Send somebody to replace me," he called down to the crowd of people, who for the greater part stood idly gaping.

A stalwart mason from the village came climbing up, took off the slates, and so made himself a path up to the ridge of the roof. Paul gave the hose to him and glided down, wondering inwardly that he broke neither arms nor legs.

Then he penetrated into the shed, from which suffocating smoke was already whirling towards him.

"Who is coming with me?" he shouted.

Two laborers from the village presented themselves.

"Forward!"

Into the smoke and flames they went.

"Here is the shaft--seize it--out quickly!"

Creaking and rattling, the locomobile came staggering out into the yard.

Behind her and those who had saved her the roof of the shed fell in.

The morning dawned. The gray twilight intermingled with the smoke of the ruins, from which here and there flames sprang up to sink down again immediately exhausted.

The crowd had dispersed. Leaden silence weighed upon the farm; only from the scene of the fire there came a soft creaking and hissing, as if the flames, before subsiding, were holding once more murmuring intercourse.

"So," said Paul, "that is done."

Dwelling-house and stables with all the livestock were saved. Barns and sheds lay in ashes.

"Now we are just as poor as we were twenty years ago," he meditated, feeling his wounds, "and if I had not been roving about perhaps this would never have happened."

When he entered the porch overgrown with creepers he found his mother, with folded hands, crouching in a corner. Deep lines furrowed her cheeks, and her eyes were staring into vacancy, as if she still saw the flames playing before her.

"Mother," he cried, anxiously, for he feared that she was not far from madness.

Then she nodded a few times, and said,

"Yes, yes; such is life."

"It will be better again, mother," he cried.

She looked at him and smiled. It cut him to the heart, this smile.

"Your father has just turned me out," she said; "I entreat you not to turn me out, too."

"Mother, for Christ's sake, don't speak like that!"

"You see, Paul, it has really not been my fault," she said, looking up at him with a pleading expression, "I never go with a light into the stables."

"But who says so?"

"Your father says that it is all my fault and told me to go to the devil. But don't harm him, Paul," she entreated, anxiously, as she saw him flying into a pa.s.sion; "don't interfere with him again, he suffers such great pain."

"The doctor is coming in an hour; I have sent for him already."

"Go to your father, Paul, and comfort him; you see, I should like to go myself, but he has turned me out," and, crouching down again, she muttered to herself,

"He has turned me out--out."