upon left the door
unfastened, looked to his usual matters indoors, and went to bed, it
being then half-past ten o'clock.

Farmers and horticulturists well know that it is in the nature of a heap
of couch-grass, when kindled in calm weather, to smoulder for many days,
and even weeks, until the whole mass is reduced to a powdery charcoal
ash, displaying the while scarcely a sign of combustion beyond the
volcano-like smoke from its summit; but the continuance of this quiet
process is throughout its length at the mercy of one particular whim
of Nature: that is, a sudden breeze, by which the heap is liable to be
fanned into a flame so brisk as to consume the whole in an hour or two.

Had the farmer narrowly watched the pile when he went to close the door,
he would have seen, besides the familiar twine of smoke from its summit,
a quivering of the air around the mass, showing that a considerable heat
had arisen inside.

As the railway-porter turned the corner of the row of houses adjoining
the Three Tranters, a brisk new wind greeted his face, and spread past
him into the village. He walked along the high-road till he came to a
gate, about three hundred yards from the inn. Over the gate could
be discerned the situation of the building he had just quitted. He
carelessly turned his head in passing, and saw behind him a clear red
glow indicating the position of the couch-heap: a glow without a flame,
increasing and diminishing in brightness as the breeze quickened or
fell, like the coal of a newly lighted cigar. If those cottages had
been his, he thought, he should not care to have a fire so near them as
that--and the wind rising. But the cottages not being his, he went on
his way to the station, where he was about to resume duty for the night.
The road was now quite deserted: till four o'clock the next morning,
when the carters would go by to the stables there was little probability
of any human being passing the Three Tranters Inn.

By eleven, everybody in the house was asleep. It truly seemed as if
the treacherous element knew there had arisen a grand opportunity for
devastation.

At a quarter past eleven a slight stealthy crackle made itself heard
amid the increasing moans of the night wind; the heap glowed brighter
still, and burst into a flame; the flame sank, another breeze entered
it, sustained it, and it grew to be first continuous and weak, then
continuous and strong.

At twenty minutes past eleven a blast of wi