s of Mrs. Tadman and
Sarah Batts like voices in a dream, she was suddenly aroused from this
state of torpor by a loud groan, which sounded from not very far off. It
came from behind her, from the direction of the poplars. She flew to the
spot, and on the ground beneath one of them she found a helpless figure
lying prostrate, with an awful smoke-blackened face--a figure and face
which for some moments she did not recognize as her husband's.

She knew him at last, however, and knelt down beside him. He was groaning
in an agonized manner, and had evidently been fearfully burnt before he
made his escape.

"Stephen!" she cried. "O, thank God you are here! I thought you were shut
up in that burning house. I called with all my might, and the men
searched for you."

"It isn't much to be thankful for," gasped the farmer. "I don't suppose
there's an hour's life in me; I'm scorched from head to foot, and one
arm's helpless. I woke up all of a sudden, and found the room in a blaze.
The flames had burst out of the great beam that goes across the
chimney-piece. The place was all on fire, so that I couldn't reach the
door anyhow; and before I could get out of the window, I was burnt like
this. You'd have been burnt alive in your bed but for me. I threw up a
handful of gravel at your window. It must have woke you, didn't it?"

"Yes, yes, that was the sound that woke me; it seemed like a pistol going
off. You saved my life, Stephen. It was very good of you to remember me."

"Yes; there's men in my place who wouldn't have thought of anybody but
themselves."

"Can I do anything to ease you, Stephen?" asked his wife.

She had seated herself on the grass beside him, and had taken his head on
her lap, supporting him gently. She was shocked to see the change the
fire had made in his face, which was all blistered and distorted.

"No, nothing; till they come to carry me away somewhere. I'm all one
burning pain."

His eyes closed, and he seemed to sink into a kind of stupor. Ellen
called to one of the men. They might carry him to some place of shelter
surely, at once, where a doctor could be summoned, and something done for
his relief. There was a humble practitioner resident at Crosber, that is
to say, about two miles from Wyncomb. One of the farm-servants might take
a horse and gallop across the fields to fetch this man.

Robert Dunn, the bailiff, heard her cries presently and came to her. He
was very much shocked by his master's co