Fighting the Flames, Robert Michael Ballantyne [ebook audio reader .txt] 📗

your own lips, and how you can possibly venture up such dreadful things, just like going up the outside of the Monument. Dear Loo, and you came down it, too; but, to be sure, your eyes were shut, which was as well, for you were only in your night--Ah, well, yes, _do_ sit down Mr Firem---Willders, I mean."

Frank thanked her, but declined, on the ground that he was on duty, and that he feared he was doing wrong in even looking in on them for the few minutes he had stayed. "Good-night, ma'am," he continued, "good-night. You'll call at the station on your way home, Willie?"

Willie said he would, and then all the company, excepting the Eagle, shook hands with the stalwart fireman, looking up at him as if he were a hero just returned from the proverbial "hundred fights." Even Emma Ward condescended to shake hands with him at parting.

"Perhaps you'll be in the middle of a fire this very night," cried Tom Tippet, following him to the door.

"It is quite possible," said Frank, with a smile.

Miss Deemas was heard to snort contemptuously at this.

"Perhaps you may even save more lives!" cried Miss Tippet.

"It may be so," answered Frank, again smiling, but evidently feeling anxious to make his escape, for he was not one of those men who like to be lionised.

"Only think!" exclaimed Miss Tippet as Frank quitted the room.

"Ha!" ejaculated the Eagle, in a tone which was meant to convey her well-known opinion that women would do such things quite as well as men if their muscles were a little stronger.

It is but justice to Miss Deemas to explain that she did not champion and exalt women out of love to her sex. Love was not one of her strong points. Rampant indignation against those whom she bitterly termed "lords of creation" was her strong tower of refuge, in which she habitually dwelt, and from the giddy summit of which she hurled would-be destruction on the doomed males below. Among her various missiles she counted the "wrongs of her sex" the most telling shaft, and was in consequence always busy sharpening and polishing and flourishing this dread weapon in the eyes of her friends as well as her enemies, although, of course, she only launched it at the latter.

Perched on her self-exalted eyrie, Miss Deemas did not know that there was a pretty large number of her own sex in the comparatively humble multitude below, who, while they clearly recognised the "wrongs of women" (and preferred to call them "misfortunes") did not attribute them solely, or even largely, to the wickedness of men, but to the combined wickedness and folly of society in general, and who were of opinion that such matters were to be put right by patient, persevering, laborious, and persistent efforts on the part of men and women acting in concert, and not by the unwomanly acts and declamation of ladies of the Deemas stamp, whom they counted the worst enemies of the good cause--some wittingly, others unwittingly so. These people among the comparatively humble multitude below, also had the penetration to perceive that the so-called "wrongs" did not lie all on one side, but that there was a pretty large class of the so-called "lords" who went about the world habitually in a sad and disgraceful state of moral semi-nakedness, in consequence of their trousers having been appropriated and put on by their better-halves, and that therefore it was only meet that men and women should be united (as indeed they were from the first intended to be) in their efforts to put each other's "wrongs" to "rights."

In addition to all this, these weak-minded (shall we call them?) people, moving in the comparatively humble multitude below, entertained the belief that rising in antagonism to the male sex in this matter was not only unnecessary and unjust and impolitic, but also ungenerous, for they reflected with much calm satisfaction that the "lords" are, after all, "under woman's control."

But Miss Deemas and all the ladies of the Eagle stamp did not think so. They did not believe that a strong mind means a mind strong enough to exercise its own powers to the ascertainment and reception of truth and the rejection of falsehood and fallacy; strong enough, under the influence of God's love, to perceive the paths of duty in all their ramifications, and to resolve to follow them. They did not believe that a high spirit, in the true sense of the word, meant a spirit broken down altogether and brought into subjection to its owner's, not another's, will. By no means. A strong mind with the Deemas-eagles meant unutterable and unalterable obstinacy, blind as a bat, with the great guns blazing all round, and the colours nailed to the mast. High spirit with them meant the inclination--ever present, always strong, and often asserted--to seize all the rest of the world, male and female, and lead it by the nose!

The Deemas-eagles as a class receive ready-made opinions, fabricated by someone else, and call them their own--receiving them originally and holding them subsequently, not because they are true, but because they are pleasant to their eyes and sweet to their taste. They hold them stoutly, too, probably because, having no foundation, they would be apt to fall and get broken if not upheld.

Having said thus much in behalf of the Deemas eagles, we now dismiss them, with an apology to the reader.


CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.


A FIREMAN'S LIFE.

The clocks were striking nine when Frank issued from Miss Tippet's dwelling and walked briskly away. On turning a corner he came upon one of the numerous fire-escapes that nightly rear their tall heads against the houses all over London, in a somewhat rampant way, as though they knew of the fires that were about to take place, and, like mettlesome war-horses, were anxious to rush into action without delay.

On the pavement, close by the escape, stood a small sentry-box, and the moment Frank came in sight of it he remembered that it was the nocturnal habitation of his friend Conductor Samuel Forest. Sam himself was leaning his arms on the lower half of his divided door, and gazing contemplatively along the street.

"Well, Sam, what news?" inquired Frank as he came up.

"That you, Willders?" said Sam, a quiet smile of recognition playing on his good-humoured features. "I thought it must be the giant they're exhibitin' in Saint James's Hall just now, takin' a stroll at night to escape the boys. Why, when do you mean to stop growing?"

"I don't mean to interfere with Nature at all," replied Frank; "and I believe the world will be big enough to hold me, whatever size I grow to."

"Well, what's the news?" inquired Sam, emerging from his narrow residence, and proving in the act, that, though not quite so tall as his friend, he was one who required a pretty fair share of room in the world for himself.

"Nothing particular," said Frank, leaning against the escape; "only a chimney and a cut-away affair last night, and a false alarm and a first-floor burnt out the day before."

"How's Thompson?" asked Forest.

"Poorly, I fear," said Frank, with a shake of his head. "The sprained ankle he got when he fell off the folding-board is getting well, but the injury to his spine from the engine is more serious."

"Ah! poor fellow!" said Forest, "he's just a little too reckless. How came he by the sprain?"

"It was in the basement of a bookbinder's in Littleton Street," said Frank, lighting a cigar. "We got the call about 11 p.m., and on getting there found three engines at work. Mr Braidwood ordered our fellows to go down into the basement. It was very dark, and so thick of smoke that I couldn't see half-an-inch before my nose. We broke through the windows, and found ourselves ankle-deep in water. The engines had been at work flooding the place for some time, and there was more water than we expected; but we had got on the folding-boards without knowing it, an' before we knew where we were, down went Thompson into water four feet deep. I think myself some of the water-pipes had burst. He rose gasping, and I caught him by the collar and hauled him out. It was in trying to recover himself when he fell that he got the sprain. You've heard how he came by the other mishap?"

"Yes, it was gallopin' down Ludgate Hill, wasn't it?"

"Ay; the engine went over a barrow, and the jolt threw him off, and before he got up it was on him. By good fortune it did not go over him; it only bruised his back; but it's worse than we thought it would be, I fear."

"Ah! one never knows," said Forest gravely. "There's one man Jackson, now, only two weeks ago he was up in a third floor in Lambeth, and had brought down two women and a child, and was in the back-rooms groping for more, when the floor above gave way and came down on him. We all thought he was done for, but some of the beams had got jammed, and not five minutes after he steps out of a window all right--only a scratch or two, not worth mentioning; yet that same man fell down a flight of stairs at the same fire, with a boy on his shoulder, and sprained his ankle so bad that he's bin laid up for three weeks; but he saved the boy."

"Ah! it was worth the sprain," said Frank.

"It was," responded Forest.

"Well, good-night," said Frank, resuming his walk.

Samuel Forest responded "good-night," and then, getting into his box, sat down on its little seat, which was warranted not to hold two, trimmed the lamp that hung at his side, and, pulling out a book from a corner, began to peruse it.

Sam was of a literary turn of mind. He read a great deal during his lonely watches, and used often to say that some of his happiest hours were those spent in the dead of night in his sentry-box. His helmet hung on a peg beside him. His hatchet was in his girdle, and a small cap covered his head. Looking at him in his snug and brightly illuminated little apartment, he appeared--by contrast with the surrounding darkness--inexpressibly comfortable. Nevertheless, Sam Forest could have told you that appearances are often deceptive, and that no matter how it looked, his box was but a cold habitation on a biting December night.

While deeply immersed in his book, Sam heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and pricked up his ears. He was a good judge of such sounds. As they drew near, he quietly took off his cap, put on his helmet, and stepped from his box. The street was very silent; and, perhaps, not one of the hundreds of sleepers there thought of the solitary man who held vigil, and was so alert to do them service, if the hour of their extremity should come.

But a cry arose that startled them--"Fire! fire!!"

Another moment, and two men dashed round the corner, yelling at the top of their voices. Gasping for breath, they named the locality. Almost before they had done so, two policemen were on the spot, and in another moment the fire-escape was in motion.