Then came the lowing of a cow; but all was perfectly still at the house, and it seemed astounding that no one should have been alarmed.
Only another hundred yards or so and the farm would be reached. Dick had settled down to a much slower speed. There was a sensation as if the fire that shone in his face had made his breath scorching, so that it burned his chest, while his feet were being weighted with lead.
“Tom!” he tried to shout as he drew near; but his voice was a hoarse whisper, and it seemed to be drowned by the steady beat of the feet behind upon the road.
“Tom!” he cried again, but with no better result, as he staggered on by the wide drain which ran right up to the farm buildings from the big pool in the fen where the reeds were cut.
And now that full drain and the pool gleamed golden, as if they too were turned to fire, as Dick pushed by, realising that the hay-stack, the great seed-stack, and the little stack of oats were blazing together, not furiously, but with the flame rising up in a steady silent manner which was awful.
There was a rough piece of stone in the way, against which Dick caught his foot and nearly fell; but he saved himself, stooped, and picked up the stone; and as he panted up to the long low red-brick farm, he hurled it through a window on his left, and then fell up against, more than stopped at, the door, against which he beat and kicked with all his might.
The crashing in of the leaded pane casement had, however, acted like the key which had unlocked the silent farmstead.
Tom Tallington rushed to the window.
“Who’s—”
He would probably have said “that,” but he turned his sentence into the cry of “Fire! fire!”