Fighting the Flames by R. M. Ballantyne (rooftoppers .TXT) 📖

a nightmare or a guillotine, and she made dreadful efforts to pinch herself awake without success. Next moment a man’s head, looking very grim in the light of a bull’s-eye lamp, appeared at the top of the guillotine. So far this was in keeping with her idea; but when the head leapt into the room, followed by its relative body, and made a rush at her, Miss Deemas cast courage and philosophy to the dogs, gave herself over to abject fear, uttered a piercing shriek, dipped her head under the bedclothes, and, drawing her knees up to her mouth, clasped her hands over them in agony.

“Come, ma’am, don’t take on so; no time to lose; floor’s goin’ down!” said Sam. He coughed as he said it, for the smoke was getting thicker every moment.

Shriek upon shriek was the only answer vouchsafed by the terrified Eagle. A wild cheer from the mob outside seemed to be a reply of encouragement to her; but it was not so; it was called forth by the sudden appearance of a fire-engine dashing round the corner of the lane.

“Be quiet, my good lady,” said Sam Forest in a voice of tenderness; but if his voice was tender his actions were the reverse, for it was now a matter of life or death; so he grasped the Eagle, bedclothes and all, in his arms, and bore her to the window.

It is probable that this act revived in Miss Deemas some reminiscences of her childhood, for she suddenly straightened herself out and struggled violently, after the manner of those sweet little ones who won’t be made to sit on nurse’s knees. Being a tall, heavy woman, she struggled out of Sam’s grasp and fell to the floor; but her victory was short-lived. Another moment and that bold man had her round the waist, in a grasp from which she could not free herself. Sam was considerate, however, and polite even in this extremity. He begged pardon as he wrapped the bedclothes round his victim, and lifting her into the head of the escape, let her go.

No swoop that the Eagle ever made (mentally) down upon base, unworthy, arrogant man, was at all comparable to the descent which she made (physically) on that occasion into the arms of an expectant fireman! She held her breath, also the blankets, tightly, as she went down like a lightning-flash, and felt that she was about to be dashed to pieces, but to her surprise soft cushions received her, and she was immediately borne, by another of these desperate men in helmets, into an adjoining house, and left unhurt in the arms of her sympathetic friend Miss Tippet.

“Oh, my dear, dear Julia!” exclaimed Miss Tippet, shutting the door of the room into which they had been ushered, and assisting her friend to disentangle herself from the bedclothes. “Oh! what a mercy we’ve not all been roasted alive like beef steaks—or—oh! what a sight you are, my darling! You must have got it coming down that dreadful thing—the what’s-’is-name, you know. Shall I ring for water?”

“Tut, nonsense!” exclaimed the Eagle, panting as well from nervous excitement as exhaustion; “you are always so fussy, Emelina. Please assist me to tie this string, Miss Ward.”

“Yes, I know I’m fussy, dear Julia!” exclaimed Miss Tippet, bustling nervously about the room; “but I can’t help it, and I’m so thankful for—; but it was so bold in these noble fellows to risk their lives to—”

“Noble fellows!” shouted Miss Deemas, with flashing eyes, “d’you call it noble to pull me out of bed, and roll me in a blanket and shoot me down a—a—I don’t know what, like a sack of coals? Noble fellows, indeed! Brutes!”

Here Miss Deemas clasped her hands above her head in a passion of conflicting feelings, and, being unable to find words for utterance, burst into a flood of tears, dropped into a chair, and covered her face with both hands.

“Dear, dear, darling Julia!” said Miss Tippet soothingly.

“Don’t speak to me!” sobbed the Eagle passionately, and stamping her foot; “I can’t bear to think of it.”

“But you know, dear,” persevered her friend, “they could not help being—being—what d’you call it?—energetic, you know, for it was not rough. We should all have been roasted to death but for them, and I feel very, very grateful to them. I shall respect that policeman as long as I live.”

“Ah, sure an’ he is a dacent boy now,” said Matty Merryon, who entered the room just then; “the way he lifted you an’ Miss Emma up an’ flung ye over his showlder, as aisy as if ye was two bolsters, was beautiful to look at; indade it was. Shure it remimbered me o’ the purty pottery ye was readin’ just the other night, as was writ by O’Dood or O’Hood—”

“Hood,” suggested Miss Tippet.

“P’r’aps it was,” said Matty; “he’d be none the worse of an O before his name anyhow. But the pottery begood with— ‘Take her up tinderly, lift her with care,’ if I don’t misremimber.”

“Will you hold your tongue!” cried the Eagle, looking up suddenly and drying her eyes.

“Surely, miss,” said Matty, with a toss of her head; “anything to plaize ye.”

It is due to Matty to say that, while the policeman was descending the ladder with her mistress, she had faithfully remained to comfort and encourage Emma; and after Emma was rescued she had quietly descended the ladder without assistance, having previously found time to clothe herself in something a little more ample and appropriate than a bolster.

But where was David Boone all this time? Rather say, where was he not? Everywhere by turns, and nowhere long, was David to be seen, in the frenzy of his excitement. Conscience-smitten, for what he had done, or rather intended to do, he ran wildly about, making the most desperate efforts to extinguish the fire.

No one knows what he can do till he is tried. That is a proverb (at least if it is not it ought to be) which embraces much deep truth. The way in which David Boone set personal danger at defiance, and seemed to regard suffocation by smoke or roasting by fire as terminations of life worth courting, was astounding, and rendered his friends and neighbours dumb with amazement.

David was now on the staircase among the firemen, fighting his way up through fire and smoke, for the purpose of saving Miss Tippet, until he was hauled forcibly back by Dale or Baxmore—who were in the thick of it as usual. Anon, down in the basement, knee-deep in water, searching for the bodies of his two shopmen, both of whom were standing comfortably outside, looking on. Presently he was on the leads of the adjoining house, directing, commanding, exhorting, entreating, the firemen there to point their branch at the “blue bedroom.” Soon after he was in the street, tearing his hair, shouting that it was all his fault; that he did it, and that it would kill him.

Before the fire was put out, poor Boone’s eyelashes and whiskers were singed off; little hair was left on his head, and that little was short and frizzled. His clothes, of course, were completely soaked; in addition to which, they were torn almost to shreds, and some of his skin was in the same condition. At last he had to be forcibly taken in charge, and kept shut up in an adjoining house, from the window of which he watched the destruction of his property and his hopes.

Almost superhuman efforts had been made by the firemen to save the house. Many a house in London had they saved that year, partially or wholly; as, indeed, is the case every year, and many thousands of pounds’ worth of property had they rescued; but this case utterly defied them. So well had the plot been laid; so thoroughly had the combustibles been distributed and lubricated with inflammable liquids, that all the engines in the metropolis would have failed to extinguish that fire.

David Boone knew this, and he groaned in spirit. The firemen knew it not, and they worked like heroes.

There was a shout at last among the firemen to “look out!” It was feared one of the partition walls was coming down, so each man beat a hasty retreat. They swarmed out at the door like bees, and were all safe when the wall fell—all safe, but one, Joe Corney, who, being a reckless man, took things too leisurely, and was knocked down by the falling bricks.

Moxey and Williams ran back, and carried him out of danger. Then, seeing that he did not recover consciousness, although he breathed, they carried him at once to the hospital. The flames of the burning house sprang up, just then, as if they leaped in triumph over a fallen foe; but the polished surface of poor Joe’s helmet seemed to flash back defiance at the flames as they bore him away.

After the partition wall fell, the fire sank, and in the course of a few hours it was extinguished altogether. But nothing whatever was saved, and the firemen had only the satisfaction of knowing that they had done their best, and had preserved the adjoining houses, which would certainly have gone, but for their untiring energy.

By this time, David Boone, besides being mad, was in a raging fever. The tenant of the house to which he had been taken was a friend, as well as a neighbour of his own—a greengrocer, named Mrs Craw, and she turned out to be a good Samaritan, for she insisted on keeping Boone in her house, and nursing him; asserting stoutly, and with a very red face (she almost always asserted things stoutly, and with a red face), that Mister Boone was one of ’er best an’ holdest friends, as she wouldn’t see ’im go to a hospital on charity—which she despised, so she did—as long as there was a spare bed in her ’ouse, so there was—which it wasn’t as long as could be wished, considerin’ Mister Boone’s height; but that could be put right by knocking out the foot-board, and two cheers, so it could—and as long she had one copper to rub on another; no, though she was to be flayed alive for her hospitality. By which round statement, Mrs Craw was understood to imply a severe rebuke to Mrs Grab—another greengrocer over the way (and a widow)—who had been heard to say, during the progress of the fire, that it served Boone right, and that she wouldn’t give him a helping hand in his distress on any account whatever.

Why Mrs Grab was so bitter and Mrs Craw so humane is a matter of uncertainty; but it was generally believed that the former having had a matrimonial eye on Boone, and that Boone having expressed general objections to matrimony—besides having gone of late to Mrs Craw for his vegetables—had something to do with it.

Next day, D. Gorman happened, quite in a casual way of course, to saunter into Poorthing Lane; and it was positively interesting to note—as many people did note—the surprise and consternation with which he received the news of the fire from the people at the end of the lane who first met him, and who knew him well.

“Wery sad, ain’t it, sir?” said a sympathetic barber. “He was sitch a droll dog too. He’ll be quite a loss to the neighbourhood; won’t he, sir?”

“I hope he won’t,” said Gorman, loud enough to be heard by several persons who lounged about their doors. “I hope to see him start afresh, an’ git on better than ever, poor fellow; at least, I’ll do all I can to help him.”

“Ah! you’ve helped him already, sir, more than once, I believe; at least so he told me,” said the barber, with an approving nod.

“Well, so I have,” returned Gorman modestly, “but he may be assured that any trifle he owes me won’t be called for just now. In fact, my small loan to him is an old