A great fire in the night, the savage, uncontrollable revolt of man’s tamed servant—is at all times a terrible sight. Nor on this occasion was it only the horror of the flames, roaring and crackling and pouring forth a million of sparks, which chained their eyes. For as these rose, they shed an intense light, not only on the heights of Redcliffe, visible above the east side of the Square, and on the stately tower which rose from them, but on the multitude below; on the hurrying forms that, monkey-like, played before the flames and seemed to feed them, and on a still stranger sight, the expanse of up-turned faces that, in the rear of the active rioters, extended to the farthest limit of the Square.
For it was the quiescence, it was the inertness of the gazing crowd which most appalled the spectators at the window. To see that great house burn and to see no man stretch forth a hand to quench it, this terrified. “Oh, but it is frightful! It is horrible!” Mary exclaimed.
“I should like to knock their heads together!” Miss Sibson cried sternly. “What are the soldiers doing? What is anyone doing?”
“They have hounded on the dogs,” Lady Sybil said slowly—she alone seemed to view the sight with a dispassionate eye, “and they are biting instead of barking! That is all.”
“Dogs?” Miss Sibson echoed.
“Ay, the dogs of Reform!” Lady Sybil replied cynically. “Brougham’s dogs! Grey’s dogs! Russell’s dogs! I could wish Sir Robert were here, it would so please him to see his words fulfilled!” And then, as in surprise at the thing she had uttered, “I wonder when I wished to please him before?” she muttered.
“Oh, but it is frightful!” Mary repeated, unable to remove her eyes from the flames.
It was frightful; even while they were all sane people in the room, and, whatever their fears, restrained them. What then was it a moment later, when the woman of the house burst in upon them, with a maid in wild hysterics clinging to her, and another on the threshold screaming “Fire! Fire!”
“It’s all on fire at the back!” the woman panted. “It’s on fire, it’s all on fire, my lady, at the back!”
“It’s all—what?” Miss Sibson rejoined, in a tone which had been known to quell the pertest of seventeen-year-old rebels. “It is what, woman? On fire at the back? And if it is, is that a ground for forgetting your manners? Where is your deportment? Fire, indeed! Are you aware whose room this is? For shame! And you, silly,” she continued, addressing herself to the maid, “be silent, and go outside, as becomes you.”