Then came a scene of bewildering confusion, as women and children trooped into the yard—“Who was it?”
“Was he dead?”
“The fire was catching the thatch.”
“The stables were on fire.”
“Who did it?”—all sorts of cries and all sorts of acts except the right ones. Fortunately two or three of the men, with heads on their shoulders, soon organized a line for handling buckets; the flue was stopped below, and Harry Winburn standing nearly at the top of the ladder, which was now safely planted, was deluging the thatch round the chimney from the buckets handed up to him. In a few minutes he was able to pour water down the chimney itself, and soon afterwards the whole affair was at an end. The farmer's dinner was spoilt, but otherwise no damage had been done, except to the clothes of the foremost men; and the only accident was that first fall from the ladder.
The man had been carried out of the yard while the fire was still burning; so that it was hardly known who it was.
Now, in answer to their inquiries, it proved to be old Simon, the rector's gardener and head man, who had seen the fire, and sent the news to the church, while he himself went to the spot, with such result as we have seen.
The surgeon had not yet seen him. Some declared he was dead; others, that he was sitting up at home, and quite well. Little by little the crowd dispersed to Sunday's dinners; when they met again before the afternoon's service, it was ascertained that Simon was certainly not dead, but all else was still nothing more than rumor. Public opinion was much divided, some holding that it would go hard with a man of his age and heft; but the common belief seemed to be that he was of that sort “as'd take a deal o' killin',” and that he would be none the worse for such a fall as that.
The two young ladies had been much shocked at the accident, and had accompanied the hurdle on which old Simon was carried to his cottage door; after afternoon service they went round by the cottage to inquire. The two girls knocked at the door, which was opened by his wife, who dropped a curtsey and smoothed down her Sunday apron when she found who were her visitors.
She seemed at first a little unwilling to let them in; but Miss Winter pressed so kindly to see her husband, and Mary made such sympathizing eyes at her, that the old woman gave in, and conducted them through the front room into that beyond, where the patient lay.