The Thorogood Family | Page 8

a point of vantage to
another, giving a helping hand here and there with the hose, answering
a quick question promptly, and doing his utmost to dispose his force in
such a way as to quell the raging fire. All this time he moved about
among smoke and flames and falling materials as if he bore a charmed
life--which, indeed, he did: for, as he afterwards said himself, the hand
of God shielded him, and nothing on earth could kill him till his work
on earth was done; and nothing on earth could save him when his time
to die should come. This sentiment was, partly at least, the secret of the
fireman's cool courage in the midst of danger.
But the enemy was very strong that night, and the brigade could make
no impression whatever on the burning house, the inside of which
glowed like a smelting furnace.
"Try the drawing-room window, Jim, wi' the fire-escape," said our

foreman to one of his men.
He helped Jim to push the huge ladder on wheels to the window
mentioned, and placed it in position. While Jim ran for a nozzle and
hose, there was a great cry from the crowd. A woman had got out on
the ledge of an attic window, and knelt there shrieking and waving her
arms, while the smoke curled round her, and the flames leapt up at her.
She was high above the head of the escape; but there were fly-ladders
which could be raised above that. These were instantly hoisted, and our
foreman sprang up to the rescue.
The danger of the attempt lay in this--that, though the lower and upper
parts of the escape were comparatively free from smoke, the middle
was shrouded with a dense mass, through which now and then a lurid
red flame burst. But our hero thought only of the woman. In a second
or two he had disappeared in the smoke.
Two of the firemen stood below holding a nozzle of the hose and
directing it on a particular spot. They did not dare to move from their
post, but they could see by a glance upwards what was going on.
"Fred," said one to the other in a low voice, "He'll save her, or there'll
be a man less in the brigade to-night. He never does anything by halves.
Whatever he undertakes he does well. Depend on't, that Harry
Thorogood will save that woman if she can be saved at all."
As he spoke Harry was seen emerging above the smoke, but when he
reached the top of the highest ladder he was fully six feet below the
spot where the woman knelt.
"Come! girl, come!" he shouted, and held out his arms.
The terrified creature hesitated. She was afraid. She doubted the
strength of the escape--the power of the man.
"Come! come!" again he shouted.
She obeyed, but came against the fireman with such force that the

round of the ladder on which he stood gave way, and both were seen to
go crashing downwards, while something like a mighty groan or cry
rose from the multitude below. It was changed, however, into a wild
cheer when Harry was seen to have caught the head of the escape, and
arrested his fall, with one powerful hand, while, with the other, he still
grasped the woman.
"God favours them," said a voice in the crowd, as a gust of wind for a
few seconds drove smoke and flames aside.
Our bold fireman seized the opportunity, got the woman into the shoot,
or canvas bag under the lowest ladder, and slid with her in safety to the
ground.
The pen may describe, but it cannot convey a just idea of the thrilling
cheers that greeted the rescued woman as she was received at the
bottom of the escape, or the shouts of applause and congratulation that
greeted Harry Thorogood as he emerged from the same, burnt, bleeding,
scraped, scarred, and blackened, but not seriously injured, and with a
pleasant smile upon his dirty face.
CHAPTER FIVE.
We turn now to a battlefield, but we won't affect to believe that the
reader does not know who is one of the chief heroes of that field.
Robert Thorogood is his name. Bob does not look very heroic, however,
when we introduce him, for he is sound asleep with his mouth open, his
legs sprawling, his eyes tight shut, his bed the ground, his pillow the
root of a tree, and his curtains the branches thereof. The only warlike
point about Bob is the trumpet-sound that issues from his upturned
nose.
Bob's sentiments about soldiering are queer. His comrades laugh at him
a good deal about them, but they never scoff, for Bob is strong and full
of fire; besides he is a