Fighting the Flames

by R. M. Ballantyne

Chapter Fourteen.

Joe Corney’s Adventure with Ghosts.

When we said that the firemen returned to their respective stations, it must not be supposed that the house which had been burnt was left in forlorn wretchedness. No; one of the firemen remained to watch over it, and guard against the upstarting of any sneaking spark that might have managed to conceal itself.

The man selected for this duty was Joe Corney.

Unfortunately for Joe, this was the only part of a fireman’s duty that he did not relish.

Joe Corney was, both by nature and education, very superstitious. He believed implicitly in ghosts, and knew an innumerable host of persons, male and female, who had seen people who said they had seen ghosts. He was too honest to say he had ever seen a ghost himself; but he had been “very near seein’ wan two or three times,” and he lived in perpetual expectation and dread of meeting one face to face before he died. Joe was as brave as a lion, and faced danger, and sometimes even what appeared to be certain death, with as much unflinching courage as the bravest of his comrades. Once, in particular, he had walked with the branch in his hands along the burning roof of a tottering warehouse, near the docks, in order to gain a point from which he could play on the flames so as to prevent them spreading to the next warehouse, and so check a fire which might have easily become one of the “great fires of London.”

Joe was therefore a man who could not be easily frightened; yet Joe trembled in his shoes when he had the most distant prospect of meeting with a ghost!

There was no help for it, however. He had been appointed to watch the ruin; and, being a man who cherished a strong sense of duty, he set himself doggedly to make the most of his circumstances.

It was past one o’clock when the fire was finally extinguished. A few night-birds and late revellers still hung about it, as if in the hope that it would burst forth again, and afford them fresh excitement; but before two o’clock, everyone had gone away, and Joe was left alone with his “preventer” and lantern. Even the policeman on the beat appeared to avoid him; for, although he passed the ruin at regular intervals in his rounds, he did not stop at it beyond a few moments, to see that the fireman’s lantern was burning and all right.