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Updated: June 20, 2025
"Not dead?" exclaimed the woman in a voice of agony. "No, missus, not dead," said David Clazie, "but hardly better, I fear."
Pr'aps you might send 'im to tell Joe Dashwood to be ready." David Clazie, who was more a man of action than of words, quietly, but firmly, ejected the brother and sister from the little room while he was speaking, and, having shut the door, sat down at his post again as a guard over his sick comrade. "Seems to me it's all up with 'im," observed Sparks, as he stood gazing uneasily into the fire.
All this the young fireman did with considerable energy and haste, because the density of the smoke was increasing, and his retreat might be cut off by the flames at any moment. "Clear the way there!" he gasped, on reaching the window. "All right," replied Bob Clazie, who was still presenting his branch with untiring energy at the flames.
The brass helmets of more hands coming up the escape were observed as he spoke, for the foreman saw that this was a point of danger, and, like a wise general, had his reserves up in time. David Clazie found Ned standing manfully to the branch.
Then there's another sayin' which mayhap you've heard of too: `every man's got a skeleton in the cupboard." "I've heard o' that likewise," said Clazie, "but it ain't true; leastways, I have got no skeleton in none o' my cupboards, an', wot's more, if I 'ad, I'd pitch him overboard." "But what if he was too strong for you?" suggested Ned. "Why, then I don't know," said Clazie, shaking his head.
The stalwart form of Joe Dashwood was there, so little altered by time that there was nothing about him to tell that he was passing the period of middle-age, save a few grey hairs that mingled here and there with the dark curls on his temples. Bob Clazie was there also, but he had not stood the trials of his profession so well as Joe probably his constitution was not so strong.
In a few seconds this was removed, and Ned was carried out and laid on the pavement, with a coat under his head. "There's no cut anywhere that I can see," said Joe Dashwood examining him. "His fall must have been broke by goin' through the lath and plaster o' the ceilin' below," suggested Bob Clazie.
"My brother-in-law, Clazie," said Ned, turning and introducing him, "Mr Sparks." Clazie was about to say he "was 'appy to," etcetera, but thought better of it, and merely nodded as he turned to the grate and shook the ashes out of his pipe. "You'll come and have a cup of tea, Phil? Maggie and I usually have it about this time."
He was forced to retreat, however, to the window, where Bob Clazie had already presented his branch and commenced a telling discharge on the fire. "That's the way to do it," muttered Bob, as he directed the branch and turned aside his head to avoid, as much as possible, the full volume of the smoke.
"If he's not killed by the fall, he's safe from the fire, for it is burnt out there," he remarked to David Clazie, who accompanied him. Before they reached the place, Joe Dashwood and two other men had rushed in. They found Ned lying on his back in a mixture of charcoal and water, almost buried in a mass of rubbish which the falling beam had dragged down along with it.
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