no one gone for a ladder?’ gasped Mary, as the men were perceptibly, though not audibly, praying the great multitude below for help.
‘Ay, Wilson’s son and another man were off like a shot, wellnigh five minutes ago. But th’ masons, and slaters, and such like, have left their work, and locked up the yards.’
Wilson, then, was that man whose figure loomed out against the ever-increasing dull hot light behind, whenever the smoke was clear – was that George Wilson? Mary sickened with terror. She knew he worked for Carsons; but at first she had had no idea that any lives were in danger; and since she had become aware of this, the heated air, the roaring flames, the dizzy light, and the agitated and murmuring crowd, had bewildered her thoughts.
‘Oh! let us go home, Margaret; I cannot stay.’
‘We cannot go! See how we are wedged in by folks. Poor Mary! ye won’t hanker after a fire again. Hark! listen!’
For through the hushed crowd pressing round the angle of the mill, and filling up Dunham Street, might be heard the rattle of the engine, the heavy, quick tread of loaded horses.
‘Thank God!’ said Margaret’s neighbour, ‘the engine’s come.’
Then there was a pressure through the crowd, the front rows bearing back on those behind, till the girls were sick with the close ramming confinement. Then a relaxation, and a breathing freely once more.
‘’Twas young Wilson and a fireman wi’ a ladder,’ said Margaret’s neighbour, a tall man who could overlook the crowd.
‘Oh, tell us what you see?’ begged Mary.
‘They’ve getten it fixed against the gin-shop wall. One o’ the men i’ the factory has fell back; dazed wi’ the smoke, I’ll warrant. The floor’s not given way there. God!’ said he, bringing his eye lower down, ‘the ladder’s too short! It’s a’ over wi’ them, poor chaps. Th’ fire’s coming slow and sure to that end, and afore they’ve either getten water, or another ladder, they’ll be dead out and out. Lord have mercy on them!’
A sob, as if of excited women, was heard in the hush of the crowd. Another pressure like the former! Mary clung to Margaret’s arm with a pinching grasp, and longed to faint, and be insensible, to escape from the oppressing misery of her sensations. A minute or two.
‘They’ve taken th’ ladder into th’ Temple of Apollor. Can’t press back with it to the yard it came from.’
A mighty shout arose; a sound to wake the dead. Up on high, quivering in the air, was seen the end of the ladder, protruding out of a garret window, in the gable end of the gin palace, nearly opposite to the doorway where the men had been seen. Those in the crowd nearest to the factory, and consequently best able to see up to the garret window, said that several men were holding one end, and guiding by their weight its passage to the doorway. The garret window-frame had been taken out before the crowd below were aware of the attempt.
At length – for it seemed long, measured by beating hearts, though scarce two minutes had elapsed – the ladder was fixed, an aerial bridge at a dizzy height, across the narrow street.
Every eye was fixed in unwinking anxiety, and people’s very breathing seemed stilled in suspense. The men were nowhere to be seen, but the wind appeared, for the moment, higher than ever, and drove back the invading flames to the other end.
Mary and Margaret could see now: right above them danced the ladder in the wind. The crowd pressed back from under; firemen’s helmets appeared at the window, holding the ladder firm, when a man, with quick, steady tread, and unmoving head, passed from one side to the other. The multitude did not even whisper while he crossed the perilous bridge, which quivered under him; but when he was across, safe comparatively in the factory, a cheer arose for an instant, checked, however, almost immediately, by the uncertainty of the result, and the desire not in any way to shake the nerves of the brave fellow who had cast his life on such a die.
‘There he is again!’ sprung to the lips of many, as they saw him at the doorway, standing as if for an instant to breathe a mouthful of the fresher air, before he trusted himself to cross. On his shoulders he bore an insensible body.
‘It’s Jem Wilson and his father,’ whispered Margaret; but Mary knew it before.
The people were sick with anxious terror. He could no longer balance himself with his arms; everything must depend on nerve and eye. They saw the latter was fixed, by the position of the head, which never wavered; the ladder shook under the double weight; but still he never moved his head – he dared not look below. It seemed an age before the crossing was accomplished. At last the window was gained; the bearer relieved from his burden; both had disappeared.
Then the multitude might shout; and above the roaring flames, louder than the blowing of the mighty wind, arose that tremendous burst of applause at the success of the daring enterprise. Then a shrill cry was heard, asking:
‘Is the oud man alive, and likely to do?’
‘Ay,’ answered one of the firemen to the hushed crowd below. ‘He’s coming round finely, now he’s had a dash of cowd water.’
He drew back his head; and the eager inquiries, the shouts, the sea-like murmurs of the moving rolling mass began again to be heard – but only for an instant. In far less time than even that in which I have endeavoured briefly to describe the pause of events, the same bold hero stepped again upon the ladder, with evident purpose to rescue the man yet remaining in the burning mill.
He went across in the same quick steady manner as before, and the people below, made less acutely anxious by his previous success, were talking to each other, shouting out intelligence of the progress of the fire at the other end of the factory, telling of the endeavours of the firemen at that part to obtain water, while the closely packed body of men heaved and rolled from side to side. It was different from the former silent breathless hush. I do not know if it were from this cause, or from the recollection of peril past, or that he looked below, in the breathing moment before returning with the remaining person (a slight little man) slung across his shoulders, but Jem Wilson’s step was less steady, his tread more uncertain; he seemed to feel with his foot for the next round of the ladder, to waver, and finally to stop half-way. By this time the crowd was still enough; in the awful instant that intervened no one durst speak, even to encourage. Many turned sick with terror, and shut their eyes to avoid seeing the catastrophe they dreaded. It came. The brave man swayed from side to side, at first as slightly as if only balancing himself; but he was evidently losing nerve, and even sense; it was only wonderful how the animal instinct of self-preservation did not overcome every generous feeling, and impel him at once to drop the helpless, inanimate body he carried; perhaps the same instinct told him, that the sudden loss of so heavy a weight would of itself be a great and imminent danger.
‘Help me; she’s fainted,’ cried Margaret. But no one heeded. All eyes were directed upwards. At this point of time a rope, with a running noose, was dexterously thrown by one of the firemen, after the manner of a lasso, over the head and round the bodies of the two men. True, it was with rude and slight adjustment: but slight as it was, it served as a steadying guide; it encouraged the sinking heart, the dizzy head. Once more Jem stepped onwards. He was not hurried by any jerk or pull. Slowly and gradually the rope was hauled in, slowly and gradually did he make the four or five paces between him and safety. The window was gained, and all were saved. The multitude in the street absolutely danced with triumph, and huzzaed, and yelled till you would have fancied their very throats would crack; and then, with all the fickleness of interest characteristic of a large body of people, pressed and stumbled, and cursed and swore, in the hurry to get out of Dunham Street, and back to the immediate scene of the fire, the mighty diapason of whose roaring flames formed an awful accompaniment to the screams, and yells, and imprecations, of the struggling crowd.
As they pressed away, Margaret was left, pale and almost sinking under the weight of Mary’s body, which she had preserved in an upright position by keeping her arms tight round Mary’s waist, dreading, with reason, the trampling of unheeding feet.
Now,