Before he went, however, he looked round the place for a moment, with an expression of mockery and contempt. What was in his bosom, it would be difficult to say, for the heart of man is full of strange things. Perhaps he felt it unpleasant to be under an obligation to the owner of that poor tenement, even for a night's shelter, and strove to salve the wound of pride by reducing the obligation to the lowest point in his own estimation. He might think that the misery he saw around did not make it a very desirable resting-place, and that he had little to be thankful for in having been permitted to share a beggar's hut. His eyes, as he looked around, fell upon some embers of smouldering wood on the hearth, and that called to mind one of the many bad habits which he had lately acquired, and in which he had not yet indulged through the whole of that day. He accordingly put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out some cigars, then not very common in England. Next taking up with the tongs, a piece of the charred and still burning wood, he lighted one of the rolls of weed, cast down the ember, and threw the tongs back upon the hearth; after which, mounting his horse, he cantered away as blithely as if his heart had been innocent as a child's.
The embers fell upon the earthen floor, where, under ordinary circumstances they could do no harm; but it so happened that Stephen Gimlet, when he had done mending the net, had cast down the hank of twine close by the table. A long end of the string had fallen toward the fireplace, and a moment or two after Henry Wittingham had quitted the cottage, the piece of charred wood itself became black, but a small spot of fire was seen close to it, and a thin filing curl of smoke arose. It went on smouldering for about five minutes, creeping forwards inch by inch, and then a gust of wind through the door, which he had left open, fanned it, and a flame broke out. Then it ran rapidly along, caught the hank of twine, which was in a blaze in a moment. It spared the netting-needle, which was of hard box-wood, and for an instant seemed to promise to go out of itself; but then the flame leaped up, and the meshes of the net which had been left partly on the table, partly on a chair, showed a spark here and there, flashed with the flame, and then, oh, how eagerly the greedy element commenced devouring all that it could meet with! Wherever there was a piece of wood-work it seized upon it; the table, the chair, the poles of the net, the upright posts of the wall, the beams of the roof, the thatch itself, and then instantly a cloud of dull black smoke, mixed with sparks, rose up upon the moor, from the sand-pit. The heat became intense, the smoke penetrated into the other chamber, the sparks began to fall before the window, a red light spread around, and then the terrified screams of a child were heard.