Meanwhile, Uncle Ith lashed
his mighty instrument into a sonorous fury; and all the other bells
played their echo, even to the far-away tinkler on Mount Morris, which,
having few fires in its own neighborhood to report, took a pleasure in
telling its little world of those which were raging down town.
For the information of his uncle, and to atone in part for his previous
neglect, Bog devoted only a half eye to the Minford family, and kept the
rest of his optics on the fire. Just after its discovery, the smoke had
loomed up dense and black, as if it were trying to suffocate the flames
beneath. Then it changed rapidly to a light blue, and was chased faster
upward by two tongues of fire. These tongues leaped aloft with a sudden
impulse, and shed a revelation of light over acres of houses, and
brought out church steeples in vivid relief against the sky, and put a
new gilding on storm-beat en vanes and weathercocks. All this Bog
described in his own way to his uncle; and his uncle, stooping at the
lever, kept on ringing with unabated zeal; and all the other bells
banged away like an orchestra of which Uncle Ith was the leader.
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