All English and American children have heard of the Fifth of November. It was a day of mingled terror and delight in our childhood. Just at dusk a band of men and boys used to tramp down the road, and gather close under the windows. They were armed with guns, and bore on poles a chair upon which was seated a hideous life-size effigy of a man, dressed in an old tattered coat and battered tall hat. Then they began in sepulchral voices to repeat the following words, very fast, with no stops, and in broad Hampshire dialect:
Remember, remember the fifth of November Gunpowder trayson and plot. I know no rayson why gunpowder trayson Ever should be forgot.
Old Guy Fox and his companions, With fifty-two barrels of gunpowder To blow old England up. Look into your pocket, there's a little chink, Pray pull it up and give us some drink; All we wants is a little more money To kindle up our old Bonfire. If you won't give us one bavven[71] we'll take two, The better for we and the wuss for you.
Holler, boys, holler, boys, God save the King! Holler, boys, holler, boys, make the house ring. Hip! Hip! hip! Hoorah![72]
And "holler" they did. While the children, knowing what was coming, cowered shuddering inside the window curtains, frightened to death, and yet so fascinated with horror they were obliged to look, "Bang, bang, bang," went all the guns, fired up into the air round old Guy, with tremendous shouts. But that was not all. In the evening the huge bonfire twenty feet high down on the Common, for which all the men and boys had been begging "bavins" or cutting furze for days, was lighted. And round it every one in the parish assembled.
Ah! the delights of Bonfire Night! the thrill of excitement as the match was applied to a heap of well-dried sticks and straw in a sheltered hole on the leeward side. The yells of joy as the furze caught and crackled as only furze can crackle, and the flames ran up the sides of the stack and lit up Guy Fawkes, whose effigy, after going the rounds of the parish, was at length deposited on the top of the bonfire; the cloud of sparks that streamed out from the cracking, snapping pile; the squibs and crackers that every body threw at every body else; and then the climax, when the fire reached old Guy himself, and with a mighty heave the old fellow sank into his fiery grave in the centre of the bonfire, the squibs in his hat exploding like a round of musketry, and a roar rose from the good Hampshire throats as the whole burning mass collapsed while the flames rushed up fiercely with one last effort high into the foggy air. Then the good-nights, and the walk home, our hair and clothes smelling of smoke, and our eyes so dazzled that we stumbled and staggered along across the Common, while the shouts of the boys, dancing about the embers of the great fire, gradually died away in the distance.