Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

RESCUES. 237
very soft spot in his heart for the girls, though he was
somewhat bashful in letting them know it, but he mustered
courage at last to go to the house where he had left his fair
burden, and enquire if she had sustained any injury from
her exposure to the keen air of midnight. He soon called
again on the same errand, and derived so much gratification
from his visits, that he continued to repeat them for four
or five years afterwards, when the family mansion had been
rebuilt in its old locationD and finally carried off the young
lady to a snug little home he had built for himself on one of
the lots made vacant by the fire, " Grandpa concludes
his story by adding) "The'nice young man' is living
still, and ready as ever to do all sorts of kind acts; and I
shall not be surprised if he comes here to-night for this
little rogue at my side, who'came very honestly by her
bright black eyes and her silken curls."
The above are a few of the legends of the great fire, of
which enough might be collected to fill a fair sized volume.
In the course of a conversation upon the subject recently,
with a gentleman who was an eye-witness of the scene from
its commencement to its close, he remarked to me that
the impression left, upon his memory of that terrible night,
alike from the awful grandeur of the conflagration, and its
many heart-rending scenes of distress, were as vivid as if
it had been an event of the previous week's occurrence.
In many instances the entire fruits of a life of industry
were swept away, leaving the sufferers at mid-winter, without a place of shelter, or a dollar to recommence tlhe
world anew. The rapid advance of the fire after it reached
the third or fourth building from its starting point, was like
the rushing of the flames over a burning prairie. Families,
who at first looked calmly on at a distance, never dreaming
that danger could reach them, an hour or two afterwards
were retreating before the devouring element, leaving half
their effects behind to be burned up with their dwellings.