Peter helped him and they put out the fire.

Phyllis, the bargewoman, and the baby--and presently Bobbie, too--cuddled together in a heap on the bank.
"Lord help me, if it was me left anything as could catch alight," said the woman again and again.
But it wasn't she.

It was Bill the Bargeman, who had knocked his pipe out and the red ash had fallen on the hearth-rug and smouldered there and at last broken into flame.

Though a stern man he was just.

He did not blame his wife for what was his own fault, as many bargemen, and other men, too, would have done.
* * * * * * Mother was half wild with anxiety when at last the three children turned up at Three Chimneys, all very wet by now, for Peter seemed to have come off on the others.