Street.
THE TEMPORARY W. U. TEL. OFFICE.
CHAPTER XII.
A Thrilling Incident—The Burning House—The Tall Figure in the Hall—Escape cut off—The only Way Out—The Street of Fire—Walking on Coals—The Open Boat—The way to the Wharf—Terrible Suffering—The Awful Death in the Street—Worn Out—The Escape—Saved—The Firemen—How they Fought the Flames.
In olden times men who had performed deeds of bravery on the battle-field were canonized as saints, and those who had shown daring in other ways were revered as gods. There is a fascination about the stories which come down to us through the long centuries of time, and from the middle ages, and we are accustomed, almost from the cradle, to revere the names of the great ones who have filled the world with the splendour of their exploits in the defence of cities and the protection of fair ladies. In the nursery we learn to lisp the names of stalwart knights and doughty warriors, and the great deeds which they performed, ages and ages ago, live again in the memory of all mankind. And it is well that it should be so. It is well that the splendid actions of the world's great men should be remembered for all time. Who is there who does not feel the blood mantling his cheek when he thinks of a Clive and of a Marlborough? Who can think of a Napier and a Wellington, and not experience for a time a thousand emotions coursing and careering madly through his breast? And Robert Bruce on his little palfrey giving battle to the last of one of England's proudest and sternest knights, in
full view of Stirling Castle, the day before the great battle was fought, is a story which every Scottish lad is taught before he is old enough to read. And the lives of such men as Bonaparte, Turenne, Wolfe, the Great Frederic, Von Moltke, and a hundred others, are undying records in the histories of nations, the memory of whose deeds shall last when time shall be no more.