Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/96

 trooping in the evening before. Nobody had appeared yet (though I fancied I heard Aunt Mary's frantic voice), so I concluded that the farmer and his wife must be outside in the fields about their day's work, for these French peasants rise with the dawn, or before it.

I pulled open the door, and the light of the fire struck right at my eyes, which had got used to the darkness in the passage. There was the pillar of fire, as bright and straight and amazingly high as ever, not a trace of the car to be seen in the midst; but silhouetted against the yellow screen of flame was a tall black figure which I recognized as Brown's. He was standing still, looking calmly on, actually with his hands in his pockets, instead of trying to put out the fire, and I was dumbfounded, for always before he had shown himself so resourceful.

I stood still, too, a minute, for I was surprised. Aunt Mary was having hysterics in one of our windows which she'd thrown open; and Monsieur Talleyrand had come close behind me, it seemed, though I didn't know that then.

I heard the queer clucking and roaring of the fire which was drinking gallons of petrol, but the only thing I really thought of was Brown with his hands in his pockets while my car was burning up. I didn't love it—at least I hadn't, and the night before I had behaved to it not at all in a gentlemanly manner, but I couldn't have stood by like that to watch it die without moving a finger.

"Oh, Brown!" I gasped out, running to him, so close that the fire was hot on my face. "Oh, Brown,