Happily that shut-up
room was at the extreme end of the building, the point to which the
flames must come last. And here, just at the moment when the work of
devastation was almost accomplished, came the Malsham fire-engine
rattling along gaily through the dewy morning, and the Malsham amateur
fire-brigade, a very juvenile corps as yet, eager to cover itself with
laurels, but more careful in the adjustment of its costume than was quite
consistent with the desperate nature of its duty. Here came the brigade,
in time to do something at any rate, and the engine soon began to play
briskly upon the western wing.
Ellen Whitelaw was in the wood-yard, watching the work going on there
with intense anxiety. The removal of the wood pile seemed a slow
business, well as the three men performed their work, flinging down great
crushing piles of wood one after another without a moment's pause. They
were now joined by the Malsham fire-escape men, who had got wind of some
one to be rescued from this part of the house, and were eager to exhibit
the capabilities of a new fire-escape, started with much hubbub and
glorification, after an awful fire had ravaged Malsham High-street, and
half-a-dozen lives had been wasted because the old fire-escape was out of
order and useless.
"We don't want the fire-escape," cried Mr.
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