“You shouldn’t have let them fire the place, Hedley,” said Colonel Forrester, in a voice full of reproach.
“It was not our doing, man. Some of their own party started it. There was a fire in the big dining-room. Hangings, chairs, and linen were thrown upon it. The fire blazed up the oak panellings, and the open windows fanned the draft.”
“We must save it. Come on.”
“We are doing everything possible, man; but the water is in a well, and what can we do with three or four buckets?”
“Give me a score of men to try and tear down the burning part,” cried Colonel Forrester, who had leaped from his horse, and thrown the reins to the nearest soldier. “Here, quick! fifty of you come on.”
He was close up to the porch, from which the men were tearing down the barricade, but the general was bending over him directly.
“Look at me, Forrester,” he said.
The latter gazed up at him sharply, to see that his face was blackened with smoke, and the general’s lips parted to speak.
“I stayed in yonder till I was driven out by the fire. It is not safe to go.”
“But we must save the place,” cried the colonel; and he dashed through the opening the men had made, followed by Fred and Samson, a dozen more, including the general, influenced by his friend’s example, rushing after them.