A tall, angular woman, frantic with excitement and terror, was dancing about in the broad glare of the burning hut, tearing her hair, making wild rushes at the flames from time to time as though intent on dragging out some prized object that was being consumed before her eyes, and all the time keeping up a volley of maledictions and abuse in lavish Hibernian, apparently directed at a cowering object who sat in limp helplessness upon a little heap of fire-wood, swaying from side to side and moaning stupidly through the scorched and grimy hands in which his face was hidden.  His clothing was still smoking in places; his hair and beard were singed to the roots; he was evidently seriously injured, and the sympathizing soldiers who had gathered around him after deluging him with snow and water were striving to get him to arise and go with them to the hospital.  A little girl, not ten years old, knelt sobbing and terrified by his side.  She, too, was scorched and singed, and the soldiers had thrown rough blankets about her; but it was for her father, not herself, she seemed worried to distraction.  Some of the women were striving to reassure and comfort her in their homely fashion, bidding her cheer up,—­the father was only stupid from drink, and would be all right as soon as “the liquor was off of him.”  But the little one was beyond consolation so long as he could not or would not speak in answer to her entreaties.

All this time, never pausing for breath, shrieking anathemas on her drunken spouse, reproaches on her frightened child, and invocations to all the blessed saints in heaven to reward the gintleman who had saved her hoarded money,—­a smoking packet that she hugged to her breast,—­Mrs. Clancy, “the saynior laundress of Company B,” as she had long styled herself, was prancing up and down through the gathering crowd, her shrill voice overmastering all other clamor.  The vigorous efforts of the men, directed by cool-headed officers, soon beat back the flames that were threatening the neighboring shanties, and levelled to the ground what remained of Private Clancy’s home.  The fire was extinguished almost as rapidly as it began, but the torrent of Mrs. Clancy’s eloquence was still unstemmed.  The adjurations of sympathetic sisters to “Howld yer whist,” the authoritative admonition of some old sergeant to “Stop your infernal noise,” and the half-maudlin yet appealing glances of her suffering lord were all insufficient to check her.  It was not until the quiet tones of the colonel were heard that she began to cool down:  “We’ve had enough of this, Mrs. Clancy:  be still, now, or we’ll have to send you to the hospital in the coal-cart.”  Mrs. Clancy knew that the colonel was a man of few words, and believed him to be one of less sentiment.  She was afraid of him, and concluded it time to cease threats and abuse and come down to the more effective role of wronged and suffering womanhood,—­a feat which she accomplished with the consummate ease of long practice, for the rows in the Clancy household were matters of garrison notoriety.  The surgeon, too, had come, and, after quick examination of Clancy’s condition, had directed him to be taken at once to the hospital; and thither his little daughter insisted on following him, despite the efforts of some of the women to detain her and dress her properly.