FORMER INHABITANTS. 
279 
bam, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. “ It’s Ba¬ 
ker’s barn,” cried one. “It is the Codman Place,” af¬ 
firmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above 
the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted 
“ Concord to the rescue! ” Wagons shot past with fu¬ 
rious speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, 
among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, 
who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon 
the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure, and 
rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came 
they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus we 
kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our 
senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling 
and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, 
and realized, alas! that we were there. The very 
nearness of the fire but cooled our ardor. At first we 
thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded to 
let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we 
stood round our engine, jostled one another, expressed 
our sentiments through speaking trumpets, or in lower 
tone referred to the great conflagrations which the world 
has witnessed, including Bascom’s shop, and, between 
ourselves, we thought that, were we there in season with 
our “ tub,” and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that 
threatened last and universal one into another flood. 
We finally retreated without doing any mischief, — re¬ 
turned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert, 
I would except that passage in the preface about wit 
being the soul’s powder, — “ but most of mankind are 
strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder.” 
It chanced that I walked that way across the fields 
the following night, about the same hour, and hearing a 
low moaning at this spot, I drew near in the dark, and 
