But as Charles and his mother came by the corner, the knot of people parted and gave passage to a line of stretchers--six stretchers in all, and on each a body, which the bearers had not taken the trouble to cover from view.

A bystander said that these were men who had run back into the building to drink the flaming spirit, and had dropped insensible, and been crushed when the walls fell in.

The boy had never seen death before; and at the sight of it thrust upon him in this brutal form, he put out a hand towards his mother to find that she too was swaying.
"Hallo!" cried the same bystander, "look out there! the lady's fainting." But Mrs.Wesley steadied herself.

"'Tis not _that_," she gasped, at the same time waving him off; "'tis the fire--the fire!" And stepping by the crossing she fled along the street with Charles at her heels, nor ceased running for another hundred yards.
"You do not remember," she began, turning at length; "no, of course you do not.

You were a babe, not two years old; nurse snatched you out of bed--" The odd thing was that, despite the impossibility, Charles seemed to remember quite clearly.