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The Mayor of Troy

The Mayor of Troy

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Chapter 1 OUR MAJOR.

Word Count: 2641    |    Released on: 30/11/2017

the Man

s down to us with a message that "the Gallants of Troy must abstain from attacking, plundering, and sinking the ships of our brother of France, because we, Edward of England, are at peace with our brother of France": and the Gallants of Troy had returned an answer at once humble and firm: "Your Majesty best knows your Majesty's business, but we are at war with

t of their ancient glory and independence against the unprincipled ambition of the French Government; when, in the Duchy alone, no less than 8511 men and boys enrolled themselves in twenty-nine com

brave corps among

"Royal Reds," of 103 men and five uniforms. These had heard, at second hand, of Bonaparte's vow to give them no quarter, and wore a conspicuous patch of red in the seat of their pantaloons that he might have no excuse for mistaking them. There was the

als) were two companies of coast artiller

hey earned their name? Listen. I quote the very words of their commander, Captain Bond, who survived to write a History of Looe-and a sound book it is. "The East and West Looe Volun

it, what an even more remarkabl

wanted no new name, we! Ours was an inherited one, derived from days when, under Warwick the King-maker, Lord High Admiral of England, we had swept the Channel, summoned the men of Rye and Winchelsea to vail their bonnets-to take in sail, mark you: no trumpery dipping of a flag would satisfy u

cannons the

dub went t

trumpets lou

both all

-hooks were br

bill and t

ength, for all

fast under

dered with gold (dores). The Frenchmen,

oud of Solomon Hymen, our

rect, with a hand upon his ivory sword-hilt, his knops and epaulettes flashing against the level sun. I can see his very gesture as he en

on: "Well, friends, in the midst of all this pillaloo, hands-across and down-the-middle, with old Aaron as bad as any and flinging his legs about more boldacious with every caper, I happens to glance up the hill, and with that I gives a whistle; for what do I see but a man aloft there picking his way down on his heels with a parcel under his arm! Every now and then he pulls up, shading his eyes, so,

n say is-

n!" began

he Mevagissey Artillery, but in the

ncient liberties, her reformed and Protestant religion, her respectable Sovereign and his Consort, her mansions, her humble cottages, and those members of the opposite sex whose charms reward, and, in rewarding, refin

d an answer, we turned our eyes with one consent u

hree cheers. We dined, that afternoon, in the Long Room of the "Sh

h and poor, we counted seventy-three of them in Troy) seemed to like him none the less because he lost no occasion, public or private, of commending wedlock. For the doctrine of Mr. Malthus (recently promoted to a Professorship at the East India College) he had a robust contempt. He openly regretted that, owing to the negligence of our forefathers, the outbreak of war found Great Britai

Hymen, "every woman in England shou

erwards to Miss Sally Tregentil, w

bachelor. They could not

n' and 'Hymen'; they certainly suggest-they would almo

Miss Pescod. "That man h

eyes widening in speculation. "

there are women in Lond

n to repair the fortunes of his family, once opulent and respected, but brought low by his great-grandfather's rash operations in South Sea stock. In London, thanks to an ingratiating manner with the sex on which a

rt and even in features he bore a singular likeness to the Prince Regent. He himself could not but be aware of this, having heard it so often remarked upon by persons acquainted with his Royal

treets of Troy, and no person would be shoot." This Cai (or Caius) Tamblyn, an eccentric little man of uncertain age, with a black servant Scipio, who wore a livery of green and scarlet and slept under the stairs, made up the Major's male retinue. Between them they carried his sedan chair; and because Cai (who walked in front) measured but an inch above five feet, whereas Scipio stood six feet three in his socks, the Major had a seat contrived with a sharp backward slope, and two wooden buffers against which he thrus

a progres

h, the jasmine on the left-with the balusters over which they rambled, and the steps which the balusters protected-ah, how eloquently the Major's sword clanked upon these as he descended! But the high-pitched roof remains, with its three dormer windows still leaning awry, and the plaster porch where a grotesque, half-human face grins at you from t

" Miss Marty would s

Oke, following him from the shop-door with a long sta

there is a legend that when Scipio made his first appearance in Fore Street-he being so tall and the roadway so narrow-he left in his wake two rows of supine children

official, chose to hang a coloured engraving of the Prince Regent on the wall behind her counter. And yet-the resemblance! She had heard of irregular alliances, Court sc

ouisbourg and in honour of Admiral Boscawen; but we in Troy preferred to write the apostrophe after the 's

in his youth. But how," Miss Sally asked hersel

know the female heart, to conti

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