"You harness the horses!"
"No! there bain't no time. Yeomanry'll be here. You mun leave the ricks."
"Darned if we do. Old Woods shan't get naught by they."
"Fire 'em, then, and go on to Slater's farm!"
"As well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb," hiccuped Blinkey, as he rushed through the yard with a lighted brand. I tried to stop him, but fell on my face in the deep straw, and got round the barns to the rick-yard just in time to here a crackle—there was no mistaking it; the windward stack was in a blaze of fire.
I stood awe-struck—I cannot tell how long—watching how the live flame-snakes crept and hissed, and leapt and roared, and rushed in long horizontal jets from stack to stack before the howling wind, and fastened their fiery talons on the barn-eaves, and swept over the peaked roofs, and hurled themselves in fiery flakes into the yard beyond—the food of man, the labour of years, devoured in aimless ruin!—Was it my doing? Was it not?
At last I recollected myself, and ran round again into the straw-yard, where the fire was now falling fast. The only thing which saved the house was the weltering mass of bullocks, pigs, and human beings drunk and sober, which, trampled out unwittingly the flames as fast as they caught.
The fire had seized the roofs of the cart-stables, when a great lubberly boy blubbered out:—
"Git my horses out! git my horses out o' the fire! I be so fond o' mun!"
"Well, they ain't done no harm, poor beasts!" And a dozen men ran in to save them; but the poor wretches, screaming with terror, refused to stir. I never knew what became of them-but their shrieks still haunt my dreams….