her with all my might out of her bed, got her lifted on my back
heads and thraws, in the manner of a boll of meal, and away as fast as my
legs could carry me.

There was a providence in this haste; for, ere I was half-way down the
stair, the floor fell with a thud like thunder; and such a combustion of
soot, stour, and sparks arose, as was never seen or heard tell of in the
memory of man since the day that Samson pulled over the pillars in the
house of Dagon, and smoored all the mocking Philistines as flat as
flounders. For the space of a minute I was as blind as a beetle, and was
like to be choked for want of breath; however, as the dust began to clear
up, I saw an open window, and hallooed down to the crowd for the sake of
mercy to bring a ladder, to save the lives of two perishing
fellow-creatures, for now my own was also in imminent jeopardy. They
were long of coming, and I did not know what to do; so thinking that the
old wife, as she had not spoken, was maybe dead already, I was once
determined just to let her drop down upon the street; but I knew that the
so doing would have cracked every bone in her body, and the glory of my
bravery would thus have been worse than lost. I persevered, therefore,
though I was fit to fall down under the dead weight, she not being able
to help herself, and having a deal of beef in her skin for an old woman
of eighty; but I got a lean, by squeezing her a wee between me and the
wall.

I thought they would never have come, for my shoeless feet were all
bruised, and bleeding from the crunched lime and the splinters of broken
stones; but, at long and last, a ladder was hoisted up, and having
fastened a kinch of ropes beneath her oxters, I let her slide down over
the upper step, by way of a pillyshee, having the satisfaction of seeing
her safely landed in the arms of seven old wives, that were waiting with
a cosey warm blanket below. Having accomplished this grand manoeuvre,
wherein I succeeded in saving the precious life of a woman of eighty,
that had been four long years bedridden, I tripped down the steps myself
like a nine-year-old, and had the pleasure, when the roof fell in, to
know that I for one had done my duty; and that, to the best of my
knowledge, no living creature except the poor cat had perished within the
jaws of the devouring element.

But, bide a wee; the work was, as yet, only half done. The fire was
still roaring and raging, every puff of wind that blew through