Welsh Journals

crowd standing about the Circle hopefully waiting, and sure enough, by the time Billy Blow the Hooter had got the fire engine out and called for his father-in-law to come and help him catch the pony on the mountain there was a bit of a glow showing at the back of the houses so all the crowd moved down through the gully and round to see how it was coming on. They must have felt proper flat when they got there the glow came from Chapel House where little Lottie was cooking fritters and had gone and tipped the pan of fat into the fire. After Mrs. Evans had thrown a basin full of salt on the flames and they saw that the chimney wasn't going to catch fire, after all, they moved back again to the Circle to watch the front of Mrs. Dobell's shop. Billy Blow the Hooter and old Dan had been gone full half an hour and people living round by the pond could hear old Dan calling, Cwp cwp," to the pony until, at last, he must have come upon her in the darkness. She was that crafty she'd have gone on dodging Billy all night, but old Dan was up to her antics, him having worked her for years before he gave up business and sold her to the fire station. According to Dan she was just right for the fire engine, being used to the sight of fire and the smell of burning in Dan's chip cart but he hadn't bothered to tell anyone what a tartar she was to catch and that any fire was likely to burn itself out before she could be got into the shafts. Word of the fire had now reached Calvaria Chapel vestry, three streets away and round the corner by Jones the Ironmonger's, where Mrs. Dobell's sister Jinny from Frome, was taking part in the singing with the Women's Guild. Three of them had just started on Three Little Maids Are We Eunice Hopkins, who may have been a maid but was all of fourteen stone, Jinny from Frome, who was long past praying for, and Mrs. Elias the Milk, who was expecting at any time and had hidden what she could behind the back of a chair. This there was to say for them, they all had lovely voices and were in no way to blame for the mob that got wedged in the vestry doorway. Jinny from Frome, who was a wiry old skinamallink, managed to worm her way out first and was gone like a long dog down the street to the Ambulance Hall, where her youngest sister was at the First Aid class. The news arrived in the middle of a lesson on bandaging. Bandagees, with their limbs trussed up in splints and slings, sat around talking while the bandagers tucked in ends and surveyed the finished job with proper pride. Those with fractured jaws were almost at bursting point from being unable to join in the ree-raa but, later, they came into their own and had the advantage of the others when the room emptied and the injured, left to themselves, began tearing off their