'Be still, Glory, she is safe, no thanks to you.'
Mehalah lost consciousness for a few moments. The revulsion of feeling was so great as to overcome her. When she recovered, she was still unable for some time to gather all her faculties together, rise, look round, and note what had taken place.
The whole farmhouse was on fire, every wall was flaming, and part of the roof had fallen in. If once the house were to catch fire it was certain to go like tinder. A spout of flame came out of her mother's bed-room window. The fire glowed and roared in the old kitchen sitting-room.
'Where is my mother?' asked Mehalah abruptly.
'She is all safe,' answered Abraham Dowsing, who was dragging some saved bedding out of reach of the sparks. 'She is in the boat.'
'The cow?' asked Mehalah.
'She is all right also. The fire has not caught the stable.'
'Who got my mother out?'
'I did, Glory!' answered Elijah Rebow. 'You owe her life to me. Why were you not here? Fighting your destiny, I suppose.'
Several articles were scattered about under the trees. The Sharlands had not many valuables; such as they had seemed to have been saved.