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The market stalls were torn down that the timbers might be used as weapons; the fire-bells rang out their brazen peals; here and there men excited almost to the verge of frenzy discharged a musket or pistol in the air, and constantly were the numbers of the throng increased, until Amos and Jim thought it was as if all the male inhabitants of the city had gathered in one place to defend the town.
But the affray was of small proportions, and soon over. The actual outbreak originated in a quarrel between a barber's boy and a sentry, stationed in King Street below the east end of the Town House. Boys and men gathered, the sentry called out the guard, fire-bells were rung, and the crowd increased. The captain of the guard was not the man for the emergency.
Thence we gazed in admiration at the ever-deepening glow of the sky, toward which great tongues of flame kept streaming up, while across the dusk shot formless masses like radiant spark-showering birds. Pillars of smoke mingled with the clouds, and the metallic note of the fire-bells calling for help accompanied the grand spectacle.
The river's on fire!" Then boys came out of their houses; and then men with no hats on; and then women and girls, with their hair half down. The fire-bells began to ring, and in less than five minutes both the fire companies were on the shore, with the men at the brakes and the foremen of the companies holloing through their trumpets.
"Come, Varin! your turn now!" cried Bigot, turning to the Commissary; "a toast for Ville Marie! Merry Montreal! where they eat like rats of Poitou, and drink till they ring the fire-bells, as the Bordelais did to welcome the collectors of the gabelle. The Montrealers have not rung the fire-bells yet against you, Varin, but they will by and by!"
From one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair and beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys; following them, close behind, a rush of smoke and fire. The clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by the clangor of hurrying fire-bells.
The last man had hardly passed out of his cell when, with a deafening crash, the toppling wall fell upon and smashed the roof of the jail. Fire-bells rang in every street as engines rushed from north and south. A general alarm had called out the reserves. Every hydrant for blocks around was tapped.
"Yes but I hope she will not wish to live with us mother-in-laws, you know, always want to manage every thing in their sons' houses." Thus the cousins sat talking till the fire-bells ceased their monotonous and ominous clang, and the late dawn of a winter morning reddened the eastern sky. It was half-past nine o'clock when they met again at their breakfast; yet late as it was, Mr.
“It’s one-session, Maida,” he said jubilantly, “did you hear the bell?” “What’s one session, Dicky?” Maida asked. “Why, when it’s too stormy for the children to go to school in the afternoon the fire-bells ring twenty-two at quarter to twelve. They keep all the classes in until one o’clock though.” “Oh, that’s why they don’t come out,” Maida said.
Towards evening the excitement increased, and the fire-bells jangled a tocsin to call the people into the streets. The Champ de Mars soon filled with a tumultuous mob, roaring its approbation of wild speeches which denounced the 'tyranny' of the governor-general and the Reformers.
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