“There’ll be more by and by, I’ll warrant, as soon as we begin the fire-works. Now then, Tom Dunn; bring out the crackers.” And then the crackers were brought out and fired off. How they made the boys start as they banged, and bounced, and flew in all directions!--“Now then for the squibs!” continued Kennedy,--“Come, Charley Salt, let’s see you fire off a squib.” “I don’t know how,” replied Charley, drawing back, “I’d rather see you do it first.” “Nonsense, Charley! Why you’re not a coward, are you? See here; take it in your hand, and now put a lighted stick to the blue paper at the end. There, that’ll do, it’s alight; hold it fast!” Phiz ... phiz ... phiz--went the blue touch-paper, till it got to the powder, and whiff! what a shower of sparks! Charley threw down the squib and run away. “Ah you silly fellow, why didn’t you mind what I said to you?” cried Kennedy catching up the squib from the ground, and whirling it round and round about his head, now in this direction, and now in that, till the air seemed filled with sparks, and the boys ran away from him as if pursued by a fiery serpent; and then in his mischief he flung it among them, and just above their heads it exploded. How the boys scampered away; you would have laughed to have seen them; and they laughed too--all but Johnny Drew and Martin Salt; Charley’s little brother, Johnny Drew, began to cry, for he said he was sure it would bring the stars down; and as for Martin Salt, he thought that his brother could not have touched such a thing without being badly hurt, and so he cried too, till he saw Charley as merry as all the rest. As soon as the boys saw how to manage the squibs they ceased to be afraid of them, and then their fun was to chase each other round and round the top of Beacon-knowe, whizzing the squibs about like so many mad creatures. And then one of them, (I never knew which) either through accident or love of mischief, threw one down the hill among the spectators. “Come, come,” cried Jasper Crabbe, “I’m not going to be squibbed, you young monkeys--don’t throw them down here, or you’ll set Goody Grendon’s bonnet on fire, mayhap!” I don’t know whether the boys heard him, for what with their own shouting, and the roaring of the bonfire, and the hissing and exploding of the squibs, there was noise enough to drown even Jasper Crabbe’s voice. But whether they heard him or no, they did not heed him, and the consequence was, that among the lighted squibs which were thrown from the top of the mount, was one which fell at the foot of Dinah Marjoram’s hay-rick, but most unfortunately not in front of it, where those below could have seen it, and prevented it from doing any mischief, but behind, where it was quite out of sight, and where it set fire to the hay without any one knowing or suspecting it.