Mrs Jeans and the Soldiers

There was to be a wedding in Belchalwell! Sergeant Fleming was marrying a Sturminster girl. The reception, complete with all his soldiers, was to be in the alehouse. There was cheese and bread, ham and beef, the finest ale – and apple cake made with Dorset warrior apples and made by Mrs Jeans, who lived across the road. She preferred sailors, as her son was one. The night was a long one. To put an end to it, the landlord asked the soldiers to fire a volley into the air outside the alehouse. Out everyone trooped – some rather unsteadily – and a song was sung, the drum was beat, upraised were the rifles and – BANG! – smoke and sparks rained down … on to poor Mrs Jeans’s roof, and –WHOOMPH – her house went up in flames. It all came out right in the end, but she always maintained that such would never have happened with sailors, as they’d have plenty of water to put out the fire.