_From "Q_."
Troy Town.
New Year's Eve, 1892.
MY DEAR PRINCE,--The New Year is upon us, a season which the devout
Briton sets aside for taking stock of his short-comings. I know not if
Prester John introduced this custom among the Abyssinians: but we find
it very convenient here.
In particular I have been vexing myself to-day over the gradual
desuetude of our correspondence. Doubtless the fault is mine: and
doubtless I compare very poorly with Dexter, whose letters are bound
to be bright and frequent. But Dexter clings to London; and from
London, as from your own Africa, _semper aliquid novi_. But of Troy
during these twelve months there has been little or nothing to delate.
The small port has been enjoying a period of quiet which even the
General Election, last summer, did not seriously disturb. As you know,
the election turned on the size of mesh proper to be used in the
drift-net fishery. We wore favours of red, white and blue, symbolising
our hatred of the mesh favoured by Mr. Gladstone; and carried our man.
Had other constituencies as sternly declined to fritter away their
voting strength upon side issues, Lord Salisbury would now be in power
with a solid majority at his back.
My purpose, however, is not to talk of politics, but to give you
a short description of an event which has greatly excited us, and
redeemed from monotony (though at the eleventh hour) the year Eighteen
ninety-two. I refer to the great fire on Freethy's Quay, where Mr. Wm.
Freethy has of late been improving his timber-store with a number of
the newest mechanical inventions; among others, with a steam engine
which operates on a circular saw, and impels it to cut up oak poles
(our winter fuel) with incredible rapidity. It was here that the
outbreak occurred, on Christmas Eve--of all days in the year--between
five and six o'clock in the afternoon.
But I should first tell you that our town has enjoyed a long immunity
from fires; and although we possess a Volunteer Fire Brigade, at once
efficient and obliging, and commanded by Mr. Patrick Sullivan (an
Irishman), the men have had little or no opportunity of combating
their sworn foe. The Brigade was founded in the early autumn of 1873,
and presented by public subscription with a handsome manual engine and
a wooden house to contain it. This house, painted a bright vermilion,
is a conspicuous object at the top of the hill above the town, as
you turn off towards the Rope-walk. The firemen, of course, wear an
appropriate uniform, with brazen helmets and shoulder-straps and a
neat axe apiece, suspended in a leathern case from the waistband. But
the spirit of make-believe has of necessity animated all their public
exercise, if I except the 13th of April, 1879, when a fire broke out
in the back premises of Mr. Tippett, carpenter. His shop was (and
is) situated in the middle of the town, and in those days a narrow
gatehouse gave, or rather prevented, access to the town on either
side. These houses stood, one at the extremity of North Street, beside
the Ferry Slip, the other at the south end of the Fore Street, where
it turns the corner by the Ship Inn and mounts Lostwithiel Hill. With
their low-browed arches, each surmounted by a little chamber for the
toll-keeper, they recalled in an interesting manner the days when
local traffic was carried on solely by means of pack-horses; but by an
unfortunate oversight their straitness had been left out of account by
the donors of the fire-engine, which stuck firmly in the passage below
Lostwithiel Hill and could be drawn neither forwards nor back, thus
robbing the Brigade of the result of six years' practice. For the
engine filled up so much of the thoroughfare that the men could
neither climb over nor round it, but were forced to enter the town by
a circuitous route and find, to their chagrin, Mr. Tippett's premises
completely gutted. For three days all our traffic entered and left
the town perforce by the north side; but two years after, on the
completion of the railway line to Troy, these obstructive gatehouses
were removed, to give passage to the new Omnibus.
Let me proceed to the story of our more recent alarm. At twenty
minutes to five, precisely, on Christmas Eve, Mr. Wm. Freethy left his
engine-room by the door which opens on the Quay; turned the key, which
he immediately pocketed; and proceeded towards his mother's house, at
the western end of the town, where he invariably takes tea. The wind
was blowing strongly from the east, where it had been fixed for three
days, and the thermometer stood at six degrees below freezing.
Indeed, I had remarked, early in the morning, that an icicle of quite
respectable length (for a small provincial town), depended from the
public water-tap under the Methodist Chapel. About twenty minutes
after Mr. Freethy's departure, some children, who were playing about
the Quay, observed dense volumes of smoke (as they thought) issuing
from under the engine-room door. They gave the alarm. I happened to
be in the street at the time, purchasing muscatels for the Christmas
snap-dragon, and, after rushing up to the Quay to satisfy myself,
proceeded with all haste to Mr. Sullivan, Captain of the Brigade.
I found him at tea, but behaving in a somewhat extraordinary manner.
It is well known that Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan suffer occasionally from
domestic disagreement, due, in great measure, to the lady's temper.
Mr. Sullivan was sitting at the table with a saucer inverted upon his
head, a quantity of tea-leaves matted in his iron-grey hair, and their
juice trickling down his face. On hearing my alarming intelligence, he
said:
"I had meant to sit there for some time; indeed, until my little boy
returns with the Vicar, whom I have sent for to witness the effects of
my wife's temper. I was sitting down to tea when I heard a voice
in the street calling 'Whiting!'--a fish of which I am extremely
fond--and ran out to procure threepenny worth. On my return, my wife
here--I suppose, because she objects to clean the fish--assaulted me
in the manner you behold."
With praiseworthy public spirit, however, Mr. Sullivan forewent his
revenge, and, having cleansed his hair, ran with all speed to get out
the fire-engine.
Returning to the Quay, at about 5 p.m., I found a large crowd
assembled before the engine-room door, from which the vapour was
pouring in dense clouds. The Brigade came rattling up with their
manual in less than ten minutes. As luck would have it, this was just
the hour when the mummers, guise dancers and darkey-parties were
dressing up for their Christmas rounds; and the appearance
presented by the crowd in the deepening dusk would, in less serious
circumstances, have been extremely diverting. Two of the firemen wore
large moustaches of burnt cork beneath their helmets, and another (who
was cast to play the Turkish Knight) had found no time to remove the
bright blue dye he had been applying to his face. The pumpmaker had
come as Father Christmas, and the blacksmith (who was forcing the
door) looked oddly in an immense white hat, a flapping collar and a
suit of pink chintz with white bone buttons. He had not accomplished
his purpose when I heard a shout, and, looking up the street, saw Mr.
Wm. Freethy approaching at a brisk run. He is forty-three years old,
and his figure inclines to rotundity. The wind, still in the east,
combined with the velocity of his approach to hold his coat-tails in a
line steadily horizontal. In his right hand he carried a large slice
of his mother's home-made bread, spread with yellow plum jam; a
semicircular excision of the crumb made it plain that he had been
disturbed in his first mouthful. The crowd parted and he advanced to
the door; laid his slice of bread and jam upon the threshold; searched
in his fob pocket for the key; produced it; turned it in the lock;
picked up his bread and jam again; opened the door; took a bite; and
plunged into the choking clouds that immediately enveloped his person.
While the concourse waited, in absolute silence, the atmosphere of the
engine-house cleared as if by magic, and Mr. Wm. Freethy was visible
again in the converging rays of six bull's-eye lanterns held forward
by six members of the Fire Brigade. One hand still held the bread and
jam; the other grasped a stop-cock which he had that instant turned,
shutting off the outpour of steam we had taken for smoke. Some one
tittered; but the general laugh was prevented by a resounding splash.
The recoiling crowd had backed against the fire-engine outside, and
inadvertently thrust it over the Quay's edge into two fathoms of
water!
We left it there till the tide should turn, and forming into
procession, marched back through the streets. I never witnessed
greater enthusiasm. I do not believe Troy held a man, woman, or child
that did not turn out of doors to cheer and laugh. Presently a verse
sprang up:--
"_The smoke came out at Freethy's door,
An' down came Sullivan with his corps.
'My dears,' says Freethy,' don't 'ee pour!
For the smoke be steam an' nothin' more--
But what hav' 'ee done wi' the En-gine_?'"
And the firemen, by shouting it as heartily as the rest, robbed the
epigram of all its sting.
But the best of it, my dear Prince, was still to come. For at
half-past eight (that being the time of low water) a salvage corps
assembled and managed to drag the engine ashore by means of stout
tackle hitched round the granite pedestal that stands on Freethy's
Quay to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who
landed there on the 8th of September, 1846. The guise-dancers paraded
it through the streets until midnight, when they gave it over to the
carollers, who fed it with buckets; and as the poor machine was but
little damaged, brisk jets of water were made to salute the citizens'
windows simultaneously with the season's holy songs. I, who have a
habit of sleeping with my window open, received an icy shower-bath
with the opening verse of "Christians, awake! Salute the Happy
Morn...."
On Saturday next the Brigade assembles for a Grand Salvage Banquet in
the Town Hall. There will be speeches. Accept, my dear Prince, all
possible good wishes for the New Year....
"Q."