Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 3.djvu/230

 the stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and others coming laden from the burning pile amidst a shower of falling sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. The apertures, where doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire; walls rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women and children shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers. The clanking of the engine-pumps and the spirting and hissing of the water as it fell upon the blazing wood added to the tremendous roar. He shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself plunged into the thickest of the throng.

Hither and thither he dived that night—now working at the pumps, and now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage himself wherever noise and men were thickest. Up and down the ladders, upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and