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