"I shall lock these up. Not one of them shall you have again while you stay with us. I'm right down ashamed of you. There was I, thinking you were such a good young gentleman, and you get up to this! Don't you know you might have burned us in our beds?"
Edmund was white with fury. Nurse's quick chastisement had taken him so by surprise that he had not had time to protest or excuse himself. He had never been whipped or struck before, and if Nurse had not gone out of the room so quickly he would have hit her back. The loss of his fireworks made him more furious still. He sprang out of bed, opened his door, and watched where she went.
She walked down the passage to a door rather near the nurseries; she put the box inside, then came out, locked the door, and slipped the key of it in her pocket. It was really a store cupboard where she kept a lot of rubbish that she did not want—brown paper, cardboard boxes, and old rags and her mending-bags.
Then she went into the nurseries and banged the door behind her.
Down the passage crept Edmund, matchbox still in hand.
"Now I will give you something to frighten you, you old brute!" he muttered. "I'll set those fireworks going where they are!"
Without a thought of the possible danger of such a deed, Edmund lighted a screw of paper and stuffed it under the door. He thought it would soon reach the box and explode. He pushed several lighted matches under as well, and then ran back to bed, and waited for the explosion that he felt would follow.
It did not come as soon as he expected. If he had only been inside that cupboard he would have known why. His piece of lighted paper had been more mischievous than he had imagined. It had ignited a roll of soft paper on the floor. The flames had spread from that to other pieces of paper, then the cardboard boxes had caught fire, and soon the store cupboard was a raging furnace.
Then the fireworks exploded, and it was a merciful providence they did. Nurse was preparing to get into bed. She bounced out of her nursery, and saw with horror flames and smoke pouring out of the door close to her. In an instant she had rung all the bells she could lay her hands on, seized hold of Bertie and the little girls, wrapped them in blankets, and dragged them down the passage, calling to Edmund to follow them.
Then ensued an hour of intense horror and confusion. From the big hall below the children watched the flames leaping and bounding round the big gallery. The men were pouring water to extinguish the flames; the stable-boy had ridden off to Cressford for the fire-engine. Nurse was like a distracted person. She had run back to the nurseries when she had got the children safely downstairs, and she had managed to get some of their clothes; but the nursery wing was now blazing fiercely. Purling came up to Nurse very soon.