a small mystery of the south chimney · no. ii of ten
first noted · winter, 1907
investigators · the chimney sweep; one cat
current theory · a draught from elsewhere; not the same elsewhere

the chimney smoke

The south chimney smokes. Not always, and not heavily — a thin pale thread, mostly — but reliably, on certain afternoons in autumn and certain mornings in early spring, when no fire has been laid in the hearth beneath it for a week or more. The hearth is cold. The flue is clean. The chimney sweep has, on his last three visits, sent his small terrier up after the smoke and brought down nothing but soot.

What is known: the smoke is unmistakably wood-smoke, oak by smell, with a green note that suggests damp. It rises slowly and disperses faster than smoke from the kitchen chimney, which is the only other chimney in this part of the building. It is visible from the orchard. It is not visible from inside the parlour, although the parlour shares a wall with the hearth in question. The wind does not affect it. Rain, occasionally, does.

Three accounts have been kept. The sweep believes a neighbouring flue, no longer mapped, vents into ours through a long-collapsed shaft. The keeper believes the chimney is remembering a fire it had eighty years ago and producing the smoke without the heat, the way a body sometimes remembers a limb. The editor, who has stood under it on a still morning and smelt the oak, holds no theory and is content with the smell.

field note · l. m. the smoke this morning was thicker than usual and lasted from seven until twenty past. the hearth was, as expected, cold. a small piece of bark, freshly burned, was found on the slate. no one will own it.

see · a chimney smoke the sweep's hat chimney swift the open window