“Did you say the church was burnt?” asked Cecil.
“Yes; and a very good thing too! Hideous place, where you couldn’t do right if you died for it! The fire began there—stoves no doubt—and there it would have stopped if any one had had any sense; but there they would run and gape, and the more I tried to get them to form a chain and drench the warehouses, the more they wouldn’t do it. And when the flame once got hold of the paper—did you see it?—it was not a thing to forget. I verily believe the whole town would have gone if the Charnocks hadn’t come and got a little discipline into the asses. It was just life and death work, fighting the fire to hinder it from getting across Water Lane, and then it would have been all up with High Street. The tongues broke out like live things ready to lick up everything; and it was like killing dragons to go at them with the hose and buckets. I declare my arms are fit to drop out of their sockets. And the Rector devoted himself to carrying out bed-ridden old women. I forgot to tell you, Lady Rosamond, he has broken his—There now, I never meant to frighten you—broken his spectacles.”
“You did it on purpose,” she said, laughing at her own start.
“No, indeed, I did not.”
“And is it quite out now?”
“Yes; when the Backsworth engines and the soldiers came up, it was like the Prussians at Waterloo.”
“Oh, then it was done,” said Rosamond. “Take care! my grandfather was in the Light Division.”
“And my uncle in the Guards,” said the curate. But before the Waterloo controversy could be pursued, four or five figures on horseback came round the knoll, and Raymond and Julius sprang off their horses, introducing the three officers who followed their example.
One was Rosamond’s old acquaintance, the Colonel, a friend of her father; but she had little attention to spare for them till she had surveyed her husband, who looked nothing worse than exceedingly dusty, and at fault without his spectacles.
Inquiries were made for Frank and Charlie. They were walking home. They had worked gallantly. The flames were extinguished, but the engines must go on playing on them for some time longer. No lives lost, and very few casualties, but the paper-mills were entirely destroyed, and about twenty tenements, so that great distress was to be apprehended.