One midsummer day in 1815 a young draper’s assistant was gently fishing in the Salisbury Avon. William Fawcett was but lately come to Salisbury, yet he already knew his river. While trying a deep pool in the shadow of a bridge near the town he was startled by shouts from the roadway above. ‘News from the army! A great victory! Boney in flight!’ The fisherman forgot his fish, and hurried away to join the rejoicing crowd gathering in the market-place. There having been bustled to the roof of a stage-coach, and had the gazette containing the news thrust into his hands, he read out in his remarkably clear and resonant voice the account of the great battle of Waterloo. [Sidenote: Rejoicings.] Seventeen years later, when the shopkeeper had become the Mayor of Salisbury, he again led the town in rejoicings. The great Reform Bill had become law. Salisbury townsfolk were henceforth to have a voice in the councils of the nation, and the barren hill on which stood the pocket borough of old Sarum was no longer to mock them with its political power. The town joyously prepared to celebrate the event. The houses were decorated. Elaborate illuminations were set up. Victory, assisted by Greek gods and goddesses, presided over a transparency in which Britannia throttled the hydra of corruption, while Wellington and Peel scowled in the background. Meat and beer were given to the poor; in the market-place, at great fires lighted in the open air, whole sheep were roasted. The smoke swirled blindly about the bustling crowd, and then surged up past the latticed windows of the Mayor’s house, to seek in ever thinning rifts the spire of the wonderful cathedral that for centuries has watched over the destinies of the town. The next day was held in the market-place a great banquet, at which the Mayor presided; and after dinner all adjourned to the Green Croft Cricket Ground, where his Worship led off the dance with a prominent and elderly lady of the town—the Mayor resplendent in plaited shirt frill and high stock, the buckles on his shoes twinkling as he cut ‘pigeon wings,’ the lady sedate in her wide brocade gown, her poke bonnet, and lace veil. Fawcett’s heart was as light as his heels on that occasion. All his life he had been a reformer, a staunch Liberal, ardent for the extension of the franchise. It says much for his personal charm and worth that, in a close Tory borough such as Salisbury then was, he should have been chosen Mayor by his political opponents. [Sidenote: The Mayor and his Wife.] So dear to his heart was the spirit of freedom that the Mayor had forsooth to fall in love with the daughter of the solicitor who acted as agent for the Liberal party. Miss Mary Cooper was a good and clever woman, deeply interested in politics, and as ardent a reformer as the man she married.