Half-way down they met a swirl of smoke, with an occasional tongue of flame shooting through it from a shattered window. At the same moment they encountered a brass-helmeted fellow springing boldly up through the same to the rescue.
“Gang doon again, freen’,” shouted Laidlaw, when his heel came in contact with the helmet. “We’re a’ safe here.”
He paused just a moment to draw the shawl completely over Susy’s head and arms, and to pull her dress well round her feet. Then, burying his face in the same shawl and shutting his eyes, he descended steadily but swiftly. For a moment or two the rounds of the ladder felt like heated iron bars, and there was a slight frizzling of his brown curly locks at the back. Then a fresh draught of air and a tremendous stream of water that nigh washed him off the ladder.
Next moment they were safe on the ground, in the midst of the wildly-cheering crowd, through which burst Mrs Rampy in a flood of joyful tears, and seized old Liz in her arms. Mrs Blathers followed close at her heels.
“My!” she exclaimed in sudden amazement, staring at old Liz’s, “it’s gone!”
“So it is,” cried Mrs Rampy, for once agreeing.
And so it was! The last fang belonging to chimney-pot Liz had perished in that great conflagration!
Many were the offers that old Liz received of house accommodation that night, from the lowest of washerwomen to the highest of tradesmen, but Sam Blake, in her behalf, declined them all, and proceeded to the main street to hail a cab.
“She ain’t ’urt, is she? You’re not takin’ ’er to a hospital?” cried one of the crowd. “You’ll come back agin to stay with us, Liz—won’t you?”
“No, we won’t,” cried a boy’s voice. “We’ve come into our fortins, an’ are a-goin’ to live in the vest end for ever an’ ever.”