ere my old
grandfather had slept, there burst a glut of flame. We dove down to the
park and along the carriage-road to the first red line of gazers. They
told us that no living creatures were in the house. My aunt Dorothy was
at Bulsted. I perceived my father's man Tollingby among the servants,
and called him to me; others came, and out of a clatter of tongues, and
all eyes fearfully askant at the wall of fire, we gathered that a great
reception had been prepared for us by my father: lamps, lights in all
the rooms, torches in the hall, illuminations along the windows, stores
of fireworks, such a display as only he could have dreamed of. The fire
had broken out at dusk, from an explosion of fireworks at one wing and
some inexplicable mismanagement at the other. But the house must have
been like a mine, what with the powder, the torches, the devices
in paper and muslin, and the extraordinary decorations fitted up to
celebrate our return in harmony with my father's fancy.

Gentlemen on horseback dashed up to us. Captain Bulsted seized my hand.
He was hot from a ride to fetch engines, and sang sharp in my ear, 'Have
you got him?' It was my father he meant. The cry rose for my father,
and the groups were agitated and split, and the name of the missing man,
without an answer to it, shouted. Captain Bulsted had left him bravely
attempting to quench the flames after the explosion of fireworks. He
rode about, interrogating the frightened servants and grooms holding
horses and dogs. They could tell us that the cattle were safe, not a
word of my father; and amid shrieks of women at fresh falls of timber
and ceiling into the pit of fire, and warnings from the men, we ran
the heated circle of the building to find a loophole and offer aid if
a living soul should be left; the night around us bright as day, busier
than day, and a human now added to elemental horror. Janet would not
quit her place. She sent her carriage-horses to Bulsted, and sat in the
carriage to see the last of burning Riversley. Each time that I came to
her she folded her arms on my neck and kissed me silently.

We gathered from the subsequent testimony of men and women of the
household who had collected their wits, that my father must have
remained in the doomed old house to look to the safety of my aunt
Dorothy. He was never seen again.

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