the street was now all alive with footsteps, and the air full of voices. we heard one engine thundering round a corner, and another rattling from a distance over the pavements. the bells of three steeples clanged out at once, spreading the alarm to many a neighboring town, and expressing hurry, confusion, and terror, so inimitably that i could almost distinguish in their peal the burden of the universal cry, "fire! fire! fire!"