 | Ballads of Brave Deeds |  |
Alice Ayres
On the night of April 25, 1886, a fire broke out in an oil and colourman's shop, at the corner of Gravel Lane in Union Street, Borough.
The fire cut off all chance of escape by the stairs, and was too fierce to admit of the use of the fire-escape.
Alice Ayres who was the nurse-maid in the household, was seen at a window in the second floor with a child in her arms and the crowd called to her to save herself. She refused to do this; after pushing a mattress through the narrow window, she waited till the people below held it ready, and then dropped the child down upon it. She disappeared into the burning house and reappeared with a second child whom she likewise dropped through the window to safety; again heedless of the cries to save herself she went back for the third time and effected the rescue of the last of her charges. Then and not till then she herself attempted to jump, but owing probably to her being faint from the fumes, she could not jump clear of the house, struck one of the dummy jars above the shop front, and fell thence to the pavement with a broken back. She lingered a little while in Grey's hospital saying only to those who came to see her on her death-bed that she “had tried to do her best.”
There is a fine fresco in the Red Cross Hall, by Walter Crane, which illustrates this heroic incident. The people there speak of her proudly as “Our Alice.” A full account of her is given by Miss Lane in her “Heroes of Every-day Life,” pp. 60-64.
On the stairs,
Do you hear the horses come?
God grant that we may see
Your mantle falling free,
When your soul is caught up home.
Has no fears,
Tho' the flames are round her feet,
She has set the window wide,
To the crowd below has cried,
Casts the mattress to the street.
Nobly done—
Though the red flames break the door,
Though the white fumes through the floor
Curl, to stifle and to choke.
On the wings
Of her love so strong and brave
All the children of her care,
Drops them gently thro' the air
To the hands outstretched to save.
We will keep
Safe from harm!” the great crowd calls;
Half in swoon, faint for breath,
From a fiery doom, to death
Shattered fearfully, she falls.
On the stairs,
When the golden horses came,
Your mantle fell so free,
All the world was there to see
Heaven's chariot-wheels of flame.
Work and will,
Tried by fire can stand the test,
Still we think in Red-Cross Hall,
Of “our Alice,” hear her call,
“Die for others, do your best.”
| Ballads of Brave Deeds | |