92 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



and by a breeze enough to fan them, yet too slight 

 to help the fleet home. There, not a quarter of a 

 mile from port, the maddened men watched their 

 burning homes and strained furiously at the 

 long sweeping oars. Not even those who believed 

 in the efficacy of prayer dared ask for more wind, 

 since it might whip the flames to madness and 

 leave only smouldering ashes for them to salvage. 

 Matters were bad enough as it was, and chapels 

 were gutted and dwellings ruined beyond recogni- 

 tion during the next two hours. Mothers shrieked 

 that their children were burning, though not so 

 much as a face was singed. Hysterical folk, 

 normally the most uncompromising of teetotallers, 

 begged for stimulants. One by one the belated 

 pilchard boats grounded in the harbour where the 

 tide was low, and anxious fishermen, scarcely 

 waiting to make everything fast, dashed through 

 the mud and up the cobbled street, seeking their 

 women and bairns and making confusion worse 

 confounded in the quest. No loss of life ; not 

 even a damaged limb ; but distracted folk so lost 

 to calm judgment that before they came to their 

 sober senses they had flung half their property 

 into the Leet, a little brook that ran before our 

 cottage and under a row of sighing elms, letting 

 the water irremediably spoil that which the 

 flames would have spared. Everything, from 

 bedding to bibles, was cast into the stream, from 



