of the fire, was
indescribably awful. Thatch portions of the ribs and roofs of houses
were whirled along through the air; and the sweeping blast, in addition
to its own howlings, was burdened with the loud screamings of women and
children, and the stronger shoutings of men, as they attempted to make
each other audible, amidst the roaring of the tempest.

This was terrible indeed; but on such a night, what must not the
conflagration have been, fed by such pabulum--as Sir Robert himself
would have said--as that on which it glutted its fiery and consuming
appetite. We have said that the offices and dwelling-house ran parallel
with each other, and such was the fact. What appeared singular, and not
without the possibility of some dark supernatural causes, according
to the impressions of the people, was, that the wind, on the night in
question, started, as it were, along with the fire; but the truth is,
it had been gamboling in its gigantic play before the fire commenced at
all. In the meantime, as we said, the whole premises presented one fiery
mass of red and waving flames, that shot and drifted up, from time to
time, towards the sky, with the rapidity, and more than the terror,
of the aurora borealis. As the conflagration proceeded, the high flames
that arose from the mansion, and those that leaped up from the offices,
several times met across the yard, and mingled, as if to exult in their
fearful task of destruction, forming a long and distinct arch of flame,
so exact and regular, that it seemed to proceed from the skill and
effort of some powerful demon, who had made it, as it were, a fiery
arbor for his kind. The whole country was visible to an astonishing
distance, and overhead, the evening sky, into which the up-rushing
pyramids seemed to pass, looked as if it had caught the conflagration,
and was one red mass of glowing and burning copper. Around the house and
premises the eye could distinguish a pin; but the strong light was so
fearfully red that the deep tinge it communicated to the earth seemed
like blood, and made it appear as if it had been sprinkled with it.

It is impossible to look upon a large and extensive conflagration
without feeling the mind filled with imagery and comparisons, drawn
from moral and actual life. Here, for instance, is a tyrant, in the
unrestrained exercise of his power--he now has his enemy in his grip,
and hear how he exults; listen to the mirthful and crackling laughter
with which the