The Mayor of Troy - Arthur Quiller-Couch

But the town would not believe. Nay, even when Town Crier Bonaday, dropping tears into his paste-pot, affixed the placard to the door of the Town Hall, the town would not believe. Men and women gathered at his back, read the words stupidly, looked into each other's faces and shook their heads. Two or three gazed skyward.

"The Major gone? No, no… there must be some mistake. He would come back—to-morrow, perhaps—and bring light and laughter back with him. It was long since the town had enjoyed a good laugh, and here were all the makings of a rare one."

But the days passed and brought no tidings.

Miss Marty had drawn down the blinds in the Major's house, in token of mourning and to shut out prying eyes: for during the first day or two small crowds had collected in front and hung about the garden gate to stare pathetically up at the windows. They meant no harm: always when Cai Tamblyn or Scipio stepped out to remonstrate, they moved away quietly.

They were stunned. They could not believe.

On the third day the Town Council met and elected Dr. Hansombody Deputy-Mayor, "during the temporary absence of one whose permanent loss this Council for the present declines to contemplate." That same evening the Doctor called a public meeting, and in a careful speech, interrupted here and there by emotion, told the burgesses all there was to tell. "My friends," he concluded, "With a sad and sorry heart I lay these few facts, these poor shreds of evidence, before you. Oppressed as I am by the shadow of calamity, I refuse to consider it as more than a shadow, soon under Providence to be lifted from us. You, the witnesses of our daily intimacy, will understand with what emotion I take up the sceptre which has fallen from my friend's hand, with what diffidence I shall wield it, with what impatience I shall expect the hour which restores it to his strong grasp. In the words of Shakespeare"—here the Doctor consulted his note-book—"he was indeed a man:"

"Take him for all in all,
We shall not look upon his like again."

"Of my own instance, ladies and gentlemen, I made bold to bid fifty pounds for his recovery, feeling confident that Troy would endorse the offer. Nor did I mistake. This morning the Corporation by unanimous vote has guaranteed the sum. I have now the melancholy privilege of proposing from this chair that a house-to-house canvass be made throughout the town with the object of doubling this guarantee." (Murmurs of approval from all parts of the hall.)

The Vicar seconded. He would remind his audience that in the thirteenth century Richard, Earl of Cornwall, afterwards King of the Romans, had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Saracens who held him at ransom: and that by the promptness with which the Cornishmen of those days, rich and poor together, made voluntary contribution and discharged the price, they earned their coat-of-arms of fifteen gold coins upon a sable ground, as well as their proud motto "One and All." It had been said (I forget if in my hearing), that the days of chivalry were past. Here was an opportunity to disprove it and declare that the spirit of their ancestors survived and animated the Cornishmen of to-day. (A Voice—"How about the Millennium?") He would pass over that interruption with the contempt it deserved. They were not met to bandy personalities, but as citizens united in the face of calamity by affection for their common borough. As stars upon the night, as the gold coins on their Duchy's sable shield, so might their free-will offerings spell hope upon the dark ground of present desolation. He, for his part, was ready to subscribe one guinea—yes, and more if necessary.