Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 67

MARIA EDGEWORTH to MRS. EDGEWORTH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, May 13, 1828.

We had a serious alarm this morning, and serious danger, but it is perfectly over now, and no damage done but what a few days' work of plasterer and carpenter can repair. At seven o'clock this morning a roaring was heard in the servants' hall, and Mulvanny, who had put on the blower, found the chimney on fire, and Anne saw dreadful smoke breaking out in the passage going from the anteroom of my aunt's dressing-room. Barney Woods, perceiving that it was no common affair of a chimney on fire, had the sense to ring the workman's bell. I was dressed, heard it, and Anne met me coming from my room to inquire what was the matter, and told me&mdash;indeed her face told me! Lovell was up and ready&mdash;most active and judicious. Thirty men were assembled; water in abundance. Frank Langan indefatigable and most courageous. The long ladder was put up against the house near the pump; up the men went, and bucket after bucket poured down, Mulvanny standing on the top of the chimney. Meantime the great press, next the maid's room, was torn down by men working for life and death, for the smoke was bursting through, and the whole wall horribly hot. The water poured into the chimney would not, for half an hour, go down to the bottom; something stopped it. A terrible smell of burning wood. The water ran through all manner of flues and places and flooded the whole ceiling of the hall. Holes were made to let it through, or the whole ceiling would have come down en masse; the water poured through in floods on the floor; Margaret and boys sweeping it out of the hall door continually. While the men were at work under Lovell's excellent orders, Honora and I were having all papers and valuables carried out, for we knew that if the flames reached the garrets nothing could save the house. All the title-deed boxes, and lease presses, and all Lovell's, and all your papers, and my grandfather's books, and my father's picture, were safe on the grass in less than one hour. It took three hours before the fire was extinguished, or, I should say, got under. The pump was pumped dry, but Lovell had sent long before a cart with barrels for water to the river&mdash;tons of water were used, pouring, pouring incessantly, and this alone could have saved us.

By eleven o'clock all the boxes and papers, and pictures, were in their places, and we sent for the chimney-sweepers, not the old ones, who, as we rightly guessed, were the cause of the mischief. The chimney has been broken open, and a boy has been working incessantly tearing down an incrustation of soot&mdash;immense pieces of black tufo,&mdash;in fact, the chimney became a volcano&mdash;fire, water, and steam all operating together. The fire was found still burning inside at five this evening, but is all out now, the boy has been up at the top.

The zeal, the sense, the generosity, the courage of the people, is beyond anything I can describe, I can only feel it. But what astonished me was their steadiness and silence, no advising or pushing in each other's way&mdash;all working and obeying. Lovell had lines of boys from the ladder to the cow's pool handing the buckets passed up by the men on the ladder to the frightful top. Thank GOD not a creature was hurt.

Honora Edgeworth adds:

I need add nothing to what Maria has said about others, but I must say about herself, that nobody who has seen her in small alarms, such as the turning of a carriage, or such things, could believe the composure, presence of mind, and courage she showed in our great alarm to-day. I hope she has not suffered; as yet she does not appear the worse for her exertions.