CHAPTER XXIX
STEPHEN'S TALE
But I was to have neither time to gather my wits nor quiet to assort myemotions: for the full issue of that night was not yet. Even as we werepushing through the little crowd, and even as my grandfather parriedquestion with answer, a new cry rose, and at the sound the crowd beganto melt: for it was the cry of "Fire."
A single shout at first, and then another, and then a clamour of threetogether, and a beat of running feet. Men about us started off, and aswe rounded the corner, one came running back on his tracks. "Cap'enKemp, it's your house!" he cried. "Your house, Cap'en Kemp! The Hole inthe Wall! The Hole in the Wall!"
Then was dire confusion. I was caught in a whir of running men, and Igalloped and stumbled along as I might, dragging dependent from mygrandfather's hand. Somewhere ahead a wavering light danced before myeyes, and there was a sudden outburst of loud cracks, as of a hundredcarters' whips; and then--screams; screams without a doubt. Confusedlymy mind went back to Viney's confederate, groping in at the bar-parlourdoor. What had he done? Smashed glass? Glass? It must have been thelamp: the lamp on the little table by the door, the lamp I had myselfsaved but ten minutes earlier!
Now we were opposite the Hole in the Wall, and the loud cracks werejoined with a roar of flame. Out it came gushing at the crevices ofdoors and shutters, and the corners of doors and shutters shrivelled andcurled to let out more, as though that bulging old wooden house were abursting reservoir of long-pent fire that could be held in no more. Andstill there were the screams, hoarser and hoarser, from what part withinwas not to be guessed.
My grandfather stood me in a doorway, up two steps, and ran toward thecourt, but that was impassable. With such fearful swiftness had the firesprung up and over the dry old timber on this side, where it had madeits beginning, that already a painted board on the brick wall oppositewas black and smoking and glowering red at the edges; and where I stood,across the road, the air was hot and painful to the eyes. GrandfatherNat ran along the front of the house to the main door, but it wasblazing and bursting, and he turned and ran into the road, with his armacross his eyes. Then, with a suddenly increased roar, flames bursttenfold in volume and number from all the ground floor, and, where ashutter fell, all within glowed a sheer red furnace. The spirit wascaught at last.
And now I saw a sight that would come again in sleep months afterwards,and set me screaming in my bed. The cries, which had lately died down,sprang out anew amid the roar, nearer and clearer, with a keener agony;and up in the club-room, the room of the inquests--there at a windowappeared the Groping Man, a dreadful figure. In no darkness now, butringed about with bright flame I saw him: the man whose empty, sightlesseye-pits I had seen scarce twelve hours before through a hole in acanvas screen. The shade was gone from over the place of the eyes, anddown the seared face and among the rags of blistered skin rolled streamsof horrible great tears, forced from the raw lids by scorching smoke.His clothes smoked about him as he stood--groping, groping still, heknew not whither; and his mouth opened and closed with sounds scarcehuman.
Grandfather Nat roared distractedly for a ladder, called to the man tojump, ran forward twice to the face of the house as though to catch him,and twice came staggering back with his hands over his face, and flyingembers singeing his hair and his coat.
The blind man's blackened hands came down on the blazing sill, and leaptfrom the touch. Then came a great crash, with a single second's dullingof the whole blaze. For an instant the screaming, sightless, weepingface remained, and then was gone for ever. The floor had fallen.
The flames went up with a redoubled roar, and now I could hold my placeno longer for the heat. People were flinging water over the shutters anddoors of the houses facing the fire, and from the houses adjoiningfurniture was being dragged in hot haste. My grandfather came andcarried me a few doors farther along the street, and left me with achandler's wife, who was out in a shawl and a man's overcoat over ahuddle of flannel petticoats.
Now the fire engines came, dashing through the narrow lanes with aclamour of hoarse cries, and scattering the crowd this way and that. TheHole in the Wall was past aid, and all the work was given to save itsneighbours. For some while I could distinguish my grandfather among thefiremen, heaving and hauling, and doing the work of three. The policewere grown in numbers now, and they had cleared the street to beyondwhere I stood, so that I could see well enough; and in every break inthe flames, in every changing shadow, I saw again the face of theGroping Man, even as I can see it now as I write.
Floor went upon floor, till at last the poor old shell fell in a heapamid a roar of shouts and a last leap of fire, leaving the brick wall ofthe next house cracking and black and smoking, and tagged with specks ofdying flame. And then at last my grandfather, black and scorched, cameand sat by me on a step, and put the breast of his coat about me.
And that was the end of the Hole in the Wall: the end of its landlord'sdoubts and embarrassments and dangers, and the beginning of anotherchapter in his history--his history and mine.
CHAPTER XXX
STEPHEN'S TALE
Little remains to say; for with the smoking sticks of the Hole in theWall the tale of my early days burns itself out.
Viney's body was either never found or never identified. Whether it wasdiscovered by some person who flung it adrift after possessing himselfof the notes and watch: whether it was held unto dissolution by mud, orchains, or waterside gear: or whether indeed, as was scarce possible, itescaped with the life in it, to walk the world in some place that knewit not, I, at any rate, cannot tell. The fate of his confederate, atleast, was no matter of doubt. He must have been driven to the bar bythe fire he had raised, and there, bewildered and helpless, and cut offfrom the way he had come, even if he could find it, he must havescrambled desperately till he found the one open exit--the club-roomstairs.
But of these enough. Faint by contrast with the vivid scenes of thenight, divers disconnected impressions of the next morning remain withme: all the fainter for the sleep that clutched at my eyelids, spite ofmy anxious resolution to see all to the very end. Of a coarse, draggledwoman of streaming face and exceeding bitter cry, who sat inconsolablewhile men raked the ruins for a thing unrecognisable when it was found.Of the pale man, who came staring and choking, and paler than ever,gasping piteously of his long and honest service, and sitting down onthe curb at last, to meditate on my grandfather's promise that he shouldnot want, if he would work. And of Mr. Cripps, at first blank andspeechless, and then mighty loquacious in the matter of insurance. Forworks of art would be included, of course, up to twenty pounds apiece;at which amount of proceeds--with a discount to Captain Kemp--he wouldcheerfully undertake to replace the lot, and throw the signboard in.
Mrs. Grimes was heard of, though not seen; but this was later. She waslong understood to have some bitter grievance against the police, whomshe charged with plots and conspiracies to defeat the ends of justice;and I think she ended with a savage assault on a plain-clothesconstable's very large whiskers, and twenty-one days' imprisonment.
The Hole in the Wall was rebuilt in brick, with another name, as I thinkyou may see it still; or could, till lately. There was also anotherlandlord. For Captain Nat Kemp turned to enlarging and improving hiswharf, and he bought lighters, and Wapping saw him no more. As for me, Iwent to school at last.
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