By the "Rev. W. C. Plenderleath. 



269 



air-holes at the bottom. The whole was then well soaked with tar 

 and paraffin, and the weather having been very hot and dry for most 

 of the preceding month, the construction was about as inflamable a 

 one as could well be imagined. To prevent the chance of an accident 

 from the match of any mischievous boy, it was determined that the 

 pyre should be watched during the whole of the previous night. 

 For this volunteers were found without difficulty, but I was told by 

 some of those who took the first watch that the reliefs were not 

 quite so punctual in their arrival in the early hours of the morning 

 as might have been desired ! All, however, passed off well, and by 



9 o'clock, p.m., nearly the whole population of the village were afoot 

 and wending their way up to the hill-top. A considerable con- 

 tingent alsc came out from Calne and Calstone, and some energetic 

 people arrived from as far as Chippenham. These last brought with 

 them a mounted telescope, which before the last rays of twilight 

 had disappeared they directed towards the Worcestershire beacon, as 

 from here a flight of rockets was to accompany the lighting of the 

 signal fire on that eminence. At what was intended to be exactly 



10 o'clock by Greenwich time, but what I myself believe to have 

 been about two minutes before that hour, the signal was seen, and 

 a light was immediately put to the bottom of our bonfire. A pretty 

 strong breeze was blowing from the south-east, and owing to the 

 skilful construction of the pyre it was ablaze from bottom to top 

 within four and a half minutes from the time of the flame having 

 been applied to it. "What with the extreme dryness of the materials, 

 and the quantity of tar and paraffin with which they had been 

 soaked, the fire brrned with immense fury, and the effect, as one 

 looked upon the masses of people grouped around, was such as 

 would have been worthy of the pencil of a Rembrandt. Our fire, 

 as I was subsequently informed by a neighbour who was driving 

 home that evening from Devizes, was the brightest of all which he 

 saw on his way. Next to it came that on Roundway Down, and 

 there was also a very conspicuous one somewhere in the line between 

 us and Bath. Including all the fires close to the hither side of the 

 horizon which could be seen as mere spots of flame, and those just 

 beyond it which only showed as a redness diffused over a small 



