And Stickles, who was the clerk, rubbed his hands apologetically together as he faltered out, in reply to Lord Harrogate’s impatient question, the excuses which he had previously addressed to the Earl. The engine of which he was official custodian had been long out of repair, and was to have been ‘seen to,’ and should have been ‘seen to’ after harvest-time, had not the unfortunate outbreak of a very real and practical fire tested the unreadiness of the precautions for putting it out. As it was, the only available means of doing battle with the conflagration was the rude and simple one of flinging water on the flames, and at this task the inhabitants were busy enough. They were busier, however, before long, as, under the direction of Lord Harrogate, whom they respected, they began to tear down some portions of the burning buildings, in the hope of preventing the fire from spreading. A strange sight it was which the village street presented, encumbered as it was by chests and bedding and the poor furniture which had been hastily dragged out from the doors of cottages now blazing, and the wailing of frightened children, and the shrill voices of the women, blended with the hoarse deep roar of the triumphant flames. ‘’Tis a mercy, my lord, it broke out when it did,’ said Charley Joyce, best bowler in the local cricket club and best woodman in the Earl’s employment, and in both of these capacities well known to the Earl’s heir. ‘There’d ha’ been a lot of us burned in our beds, if it had tarried till after midnight. All came,’ he added, ‘of that blessed rock-oil from Ameriky.’ Such indeed was the reported origin of the disaster. A girl, for milking purposes, had taken a tin lamp with her into a cowshed; the cow had kicked over the lamp, and the burning petroleum had set fire to the straw litter, whence the flames had mounted to the thatched roof. Thatched roofs, picturesque to look upon, were only too numerous for safety in that West-country village. The fire had crawled and darted, lithe as a serpent, from gable to porch and from paling to stable. ‘There! Look at the school-house now!’ cried a score of voices; and indeed the flames were pouring outwards through the shattered windows and licking the blackened walls, and withering to charred sticks the pretty hedge where the fragrant woodbine had clung so lovingly to the quickset, and scorching the very flowers in the garden. ‘The fire began near about there,’ remarked Joyce; but Lord Harrogate was already out of earshot, since his keen eye had caught a glimpse of a pale beautiful face, in the midst of the confusion of the crowded street. He pushed his way through the excited throng. ‘You are not hurt, Miss Gray, I hope and trust?’ he said with an eagerness that surprised himself. ‘No; but my house is burning,’ said Ethel in reply; ‘and I am a stranger, and—— But pray, my lord, do not trouble yourself to’—— For the young man had drawn her arm gently but firmly through his.