their hook in the wall over the chimney-piece; "they've hung there all
my time, and most of my father's. The women won't touch 'em; they're
afraid of the story. So here they'll dangle, and gather dust and smoke,
till another tenant comes and tosses 'em out o' doors for rubbish. Whew!
'tis coarse weather."
He went to the door, opened it, and stood studying the gale that beat
upon his cottage-front, straight from the Manacle Reef. The rain drove
past him into the kitchen aslant like threads of gold silk in the shine
of the wreckwood fire. Meanwhile by the same firelight I examined the
relics on my knee. The metal of each was tarnished out of knowledge. But
the trumpet was evidently an old cavalry trumpet, and the threads of its
parti-colored sling, though frayed and dusty, still hung together.
Around the side-drum, beneath its cracked brown varnish, I could hardly
trace a royal coat-of-arms and a legend running, _Per Mare per
Terram_--the motto of the Marines. Its parchment, though colored and
scented with wood-smoke, was limp and mildewed, and I began to tighten
up the straps--under which the drum-sticks had been loosely thrust
--with the idle purpose of trying if some music might be got out of the
old drum yet.
But as I turned it on my knee, I found the drum attached to the
trumpet-sling by a curious barrel-shaped padlock, and paused to examine
this. The body of the lock was composed of half a dozen brass rings, set
accurately edge to edge; and, rubbing the brass with my thumb, I saw
that each of the six had a series of letters engraved around it.
I knew the trick of it, I thought. Here was one of those word padlocks,
once so common; only to be opened by getting the rings to spell a
certain word, which the dealer confides to you.
My host shut and barred the door, and came back to the hearth.
"'Twas just such a wind--east by south--that brought in what you've got
between your hands. Back in the year 'nine it was; my father has told me
the tale a score o' times. You're twisting round the rings, I see. But
you'll never guess the word. Parson Kendall, he made the word, and
knocked down a couple o' ghosts in their graves with it, and when his
time came, he went to his own grave and took the word with him."
"Whose ghosts, Matthew?"
"You want the story, I see, sir. My father could tell it better than I
can. He was a young man in the year 'nine, unmarried at the time, and
living in this very cottage just as I be. That's how he came to get
mixed up with the tale."
He took a chair, lit a short pipe, and unfolded the story in a low
musing voice, with his eyes fixed on the dancing violet flames.
"Yes, he'd ha' been about thirty year old in January of the year 'nine.
The storm got up in the night o' the twenty-first o' that month. My
father was dressed and out long before daylight; he never was one to
'bide in bed, let be that the gale by this time was pretty near lifting
the thatch over his head. Besides which, he'd fenced a small 'taty-patch
that winter, down by Lowland Point, and he wanted to see if it stood the
night's work. He took the path across Gunner's Meadow--where they buried
most of the bodies afterward. The wind was right in his teeth at the
time, and once on the way (he's told me this often) a great strip of
ore-weed came flying through the darkness and fetched him a slap on the
cheek like a cold hand. But he made shift pretty well till he got to
Lowland, and then had to drop upon his hands and knees and crawl,
digging his fingers every now and then into the shingle to hold on, for
he declared to me that the stones, some of them as big as a man's head,
kept rolling and driving past till it seemed the whole foreshore was
moving westward under him. The fence was gone, of course; not a stick
left to show where it stood; so that, when first he came to the place,
he thought he must have missed his bearings. My father, sir, was a very
religious man; and if he reckoned the end of the world was at
hand--there in the great wind and night, among the moving stones--you
may believe he was certain of it when he heard a gun fired, and, with
the same, saw a flame shoot up out of the darkness to windward, making a
sudden fierce light in all the place about. All he could find to think
or say was, 'The Second Coming--The Second Coming! The Bridegroom
cometh, and the wicked He will toss like a ball into a large country!'
and being already upon his knees, he just bowed his head and 'bided,
saying this over and over.
"But by'm-by, between two squalls, he made bold to lift his head and
look, and then by the light--a bluish color 'twas--he saw all the coast
clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles, in the thick of the
weather, a sloop-of-war with top-gallants housed, driving stern foremost
toward the reef. It was she, of course, that was burning the flare. My
father could see the white streak and the ports of her quite plain as
she rose to it, a little outside the breakers, and he guessed easy
enough that her captain had just managed to wear ship, and was trying to
force her nose to the sea with the help of her small bower anchor and
the scrap or two of canvas that hadn't yet been blown out of her. But
while he looked, she fell off, giving her broadside to it foot by foot,
and drifting back on the breakers around Carn du and the Varses. The
rocks lie so thick thereabouts, that 'twas a toss up which she struck
first; at any rate, my father couldn't tell at the time, for just then
the flare died down and went out.
"Well, sir, he turned then in the dark and started back for Coverack to
cry the dismal tidings--though well knowing ship and crew to be past any
hope; and as he turned, the wind lifted him and tossed him forward 'like
a ball,' as he'd been saying, and homeward along the foreshore. As you
know, 'tis ugly work, even by daylight, picking your way among the
stones there, and my father was prettily knocked about at first in the
dark. But by this 'twas nearer seven than six o'clock, and the day
spreading. By the time he reached North Corner, a man could see to read
print; hows'ever he looked neither out to sea nor toward Coverack, but
headed straight for the first cottage--the same that stands above North
Corner to-day. A man named Billy Ede lived there then, and when my
father burst into the kitchen bawling, 'Wreck! wreck!' he saw Billy
Ede's wife, Ann, standing there in her clogs, with a shawl over her
head, and her clothes wringing wet.
"'Save the chap!' says Billy Ede's wife, Ann. 'What d' 'ee means by
crying stale fish at that rate?'
"'But 'tis a wreck. I tell 'ee. I've azeed'n!'
"'Why, so 'tis,' says she, 'and I've azeed'n, too; and so has every one
with an eye in his head.'
"And with that she pointed straight over my father's shoulder, and he
turned: and there, close under Dolor Point, at the end of Coverack town,
he saw another wreck washing, and the Point black with people, like
emmets, running to and fro in the morning light. While we stood staring
at her, he heard a trumpet sounded on board, the notes coming in little
jerks, like a bird rising against the wind; but faintly, of course,
because of the distance and the gale blowing--though this had dropped a
little.
"'She's a transport,' said Billy Ede's wife, Ann, 'and full of horse
soldiers, fine long men. When she struck they must ha' pitched the
hosses over first to lighten the ship, for a score of dead hosses had
washed in afore I left, half an hour back. An' three or four soldiers,
too--fine long corpses in white breeches and jackets of blue and gold. I
held the lantern to one. Such a straight young man.'
"My father asked her about the trumpeting.
"'That's the queerest bit of all. She was burnin' a light when me an' my
man joined the crowd down there. All her masts had gone; whether they
were carried away, or were cut away to ease her, I don't rightly know.
Anyway, there she lay 'pon the rocks with her decks bare. Her keelson
was broke under her and her bottom sagged and stove, and she had just
settled down like a sitting hen--just the leastest list to starboard;
but a man could stand there easy. They had rigged up ropes across her,
from bulwark to bulwark, an' beside these the men were mustered, holding
on like grim death whenever the sea made a clean breach over them, an'
standing up like heroes as soon as it passed. The captain an' the
officers were clinging to the rail of the quarter-deck, all in their
golden uniforms, waiting for the end as if 'twas King George they
expected. There was no way to help, for she lay right beyond cast of
line, though our folk tried it fifty times. And beside them clung a
trumpeter, a whacking big man, an' between the heavy seas he would lift
his trumpet with one hand, and blow a call; and every time he blew the
men gave a cheer. There (she says)--hark 'ee now--there he goes agen!
But you won't hear no cheering any more, for few are left to cheer, and
their voices weak. Bitter cold the wind is, and I reckon it numbs their
grip o' the ropes, for they were dropping off fast with every sea when
my man sent me home to get his breakfast. Another wreck, you say? Well,
there's no hope for the tender dears, if 'tis the Manacles. You'd better
run down and help yonder; though 'tis little help that any man can give.
Not one came in alive while I was there. The tide's flowing, an' she
won't hold together another hour, they say.'
"Well, sure enough, the end was coming fast when my father got down to
the point. Six men had been cast up alive, or just breathing--a seaman
and five troopers. The seaman was the only one that had breath to speak;
and while they were carrying him into the town, the word went round
that the ship's name was the Despatch, transport, homeward bound from
Corunna, with a detachment of the 7th Hussars, that had been fighting
out there with Sir John Moore. The seas had rolled her farther over by
this time, and given her decks a pretty sharp slope; but a dozen men
still held on, seven by the ropes near the ship's waist, a couple near
the break of the poop, and three on the quarter-deck. Of these three my
father made out one to be the skipper; close by him clung an officer in
full regimentals--his name, they heard after, was Captain Duncanfield;
and last came the tall trumpeter; and if you'll believe me, the fellow
was making shift there, at the very last, to blow _'God Save the King.'_
What's more, he got to _'Send Us Victorious'_ before an extra big sea
came bursting across and washed them off the deck--every man but one of
the pair beneath the poop--and _he_ dropped his hold before the next
wave; being stunned, I reckon. The others went out of sight at once, but
the trumpeter--being, as I said, a powerful man as well as a tough
swimmer--rose like a duck, rode out a couple of breakers, and came in on
the crest of the third. The folks looked to see him broke like an egg at
their feet; but when the smother cleared, there he was, lying face
downward on a ledge below them; and one of the men that happened to have
a rope round him--I forget the fellow's name, if I ever heard it--jumped
down and grabbed him by the ankle as he began to slip back. Before the
next big sea, the pair were hauled high enough to be out of harm, and
another heave brought them up to grass. Quick work; but master trumpeter
wasn't quite dead! nothing worse than a cracked head and three staved
ribs. In twenty minutes or so they had him in bed, with the doctor to
tend him.
"Now was the time--nothing being left alive upon the transport--for my
father to tell of the sloop he'd seen driving upon the Manacles. And
when he got a hearing, though the most were set upon salvage, and
believed a wreck in the hand, so to say, to be worth half a dozen they
couldn't see, a good few volunteered to start off with him and have a
look. They crossed Lowland Point; no ship to be seen on the Manacles,
nor anywhere upon the sea. One or two was for calling my father a liar.
'Wait till we come to Dean Point,' said he. Sure enough, on the far side
of Dean Point, they found the sloop's mainmast washing about with half a
dozen men lashed to it--men in red jackets--every mother's son drowned
and staring; and a little farther on, just under the Dean, three or
four bodies cast up on the shore, one of them a small drummer-boy,
side-drum and all; and, near by, part of a ship's gig, with 'H. M. S.
Primrose' cut on the stern-board. From this point on, the shore was
littered thick with wreckage and dead bodies--the most of them marines
in uniform; and in Godrevy Cove in particular, a heap of furniture from
the captain's cabin, and among it a water-tight box, not much damaged,
and full of papers, by which, when it came to be examined next day, the
wreck was easily made out to be the Primrose of eighteen guns, outward
bound from Portsmouth, with a fleet of transports for the Spanish War,
thirty sail, I've heard, but I've never heard what became of them. Being
handled by merchant skippers, no doubt they rode out the gale and
reached the Tagus safe and sound. Not but what the captain of the
Primrose (Mein was his name) did quite right to try and club-haul his
vessel when he found himself under the land; only he never ought to have
got there if he took proper soundings. But it's easy talking.
"The Primrose, sir, was a handsome vessel--for her size, one of the
handsomest in the King's service--and newly fitted out at Plymouth Dock.
So the boys had brave pickings from her in the way of brass-work,
ship's instruments, and the like, let alone some barrels of stores not
much spoiled. They loaded themselves with as much as they could carry,
and started for home, meaning to make a second journey before the
preventive men got wind of their doings and came to spoil the fun. But
as my father was passing back under the Dean, he happened to take a look
over his shoulder at the bodies there. 'Hullo,' says he, and dropped his
gear, 'I do believe there's a leg moving!' And, running fore, he stooped
over the small drummer-boy that I told you about. The poor little chap
was lying there, with his face a mass of bruises and his eyes closed:
but he had shifted one leg an inch or two, and was still breathing. So
my father pulled out a knife and cut him free from his drum--that was
lashed on to him with a double turn of Manilla rope--and took him up and
carried him along here, to this very room that we're sitting in. He lost
a good deal by this, for when he went back to fetch his bundle the
preventive men had got hold of it, and were thick as thieves along the
foreshore; so that 'twas only by paying one or two to look the other way
that he picked up anything worth carrying off: which you'll allow to be
hard, seeing that he was the first man to give news of the wreck.
"Well, the inquiry was held, of course, and my father gave evidence, and
for the rest they had to trust to the sloop's papers, for not a soul was
saved besides the drummer-boy, and he was raving in a fever, brought on
by the cold and the fright. And the seamen and the five troopers gave
evidence about the loss of the Despatch. The tall trumpeter, too, whose
ribs were healing, came forward and kissed the book; but somehow his
head had been hurt in coming ashore, and he talked foolish-like, and
'twas easy seen he would never be a proper man again. The others were
taken up to Plymouth, and so went their ways; but the trumpeter stayed
on in Coverick; and King George, finding he was fit for nothing, sent
him down a trifle of a pension after a while--enough to keep him in
board and lodging, with a bit of tobacco over.
"Now the first time that this man--William Tallifer, he called
himself--met with the drummer-boy, was about a fortnight after the
little chap had bettered enough to be allowed a short walk out of doors,
which he took, if you please, in full regimentals. There never was a
soldier so proud of his dress. His own suit had shrunk a brave bit with
the salt water; but into ordinary frock an' corduroys he declared he
would not get--not if he had to go naked the rest of his life; so my
father, being a good-natured man and handy with the needle, turned to
and repaired damages with a piece or two of scarlet cloth cut from the
jacket of one of the drowned Marines. Well, the poor little chap chanced
to be standing, in this rig-out, down by the gate of Gunner's Meadow,
where they had buried two-score and over of his comrades. The morning
was a fine one, early in March month; and along came the cracked
trumpeter, likewise taking a stroll.
"'Hullo!' says he; 'good-mornin'! And what might you be doin' here?'
"'I was a-wishin',' says the boy, 'I had a pair o' drumsticks. Our lads
were buried yonder without so much as a drum tapped or a musket fired;
and that's not Christian burial for British soldiers.'
"'Phut!' says the trumpeter, and spat on the ground; 'a parcel of
Marines!'
"The boy eyed him a second or so, but answered up: 'If I'd a tab of turf
handy, I'd bung it at your mouth, you greasy cavalryman, and learn you
to speak respectful of your betters. The Marines are the handiest body
of men in the service.'
"The trumpeter looked down on him from the height of six foot two, and
asked: 'Did they die well?'
"'They died very well. There was a lot of running to and fro at first,
and some of the men began to cry, and a few to strip off their clothes.
But when the ship fell off for the last time, Captain Mein turned and
said something to Major Griffiths, the commanding officer on board, and
the Major called out to me to beat to quarters. It might have been for a
wedding, he sang it out so cheerful. We'd had word already that 'twas to
be parade order, and the men fell in as trim and decent as if they were
going to church. One or two even tried to shave at the last moment. The
Major wore his medals. One of the seamen, seeing that I had hard work to
keep the drum steady--the sling being a bit loose for me and the wind
what you remember--lashed it tight with a piece of rope; and that saved
my life afterward, a drum being as good as a cork until it's stove. I
kept beating away until every man was on deck; and then the Major formed
them up and told them to die like British soldiers, and the chaplain
read a prayer or two--the boys standin' all the while like rocks, each
man's courage keeping up the other's. The chaplain was in the middle of
a prayer when she struck. In ten minutes she was gone. That was how they
died, cavalryman.'
"'And that was very well done, drummer of the Marines. What's your
name?'
"'John Christian.'
"'Mine's William George Tallifer, trumpeter, of the 7th Light
Dragoons--the Queen's Own. I played _'God Save the King'_ while our men
were drowning. Captain Duncanfield told me to sound a call or two, to
put them in heart; but that matter of _'God Save the King'_ was a notion
of my own. I won't say anything to hurt the feelings of a Marine, even
if he's not much over five foot tall; but the Queen's Own Hussars is a
tearin' fine regiment. As between horse and foot 'tis a question o'
which gets the chance. All the way from Sahagun to Corunna 'twas we that
took and gave the knocks--at Mayorga and Rueda and Bennyventy.' (The
reason, sir, I can speak the names so pat is that my father learnt 'em
by heart afterward from the trumpeter, who was always talking about
Mayorga and Rueda and Bennyventy.) 'We made the rearguard, under General
Paget, and drove the French every time; and all the infantry did was to
sit about in wine-shops till we whipped 'em out, an' steal an' straggle
an' play the tom-fool in general. And when it came to a stand-up fight
at Corunna, 'twas we that had to stay sea-sick aboard the transports,
an' watch the infantry in the thick o' the caper. Very well they
behaved, too; 'specially the 4th Regiment, an' the 42d Highlanders, an'
the Dirty Half-Hundred. Oh, ay; they're decent regiments, all three. But
the Queen's Own Hussars is a tearin' fine regiment. So you played on
your drum when the ship was goin' down? Drummer John Christian, I'll
have to get you a new pair o' drum-sticks for that.'
"Well, sir, it appears that the very next day the trumpeter marched into
Helston, and got a carpenter there to turn him a pair of box-wood
drum-sticks for the boy. And this was the beginning of one of the most
curious friendships you ever heard tell of. Nothing delighted the pair
more than to borrow a boat of my father and pull out to the rocks where
the Primrose and the Despatch had struck and sunk; and on still days
'twas pretty to hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer
playing his tattoo--for they always took their music with them--and the
trumpeter practising calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel.
But if the weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and
talking; leastwise, the youngster listened while the other discoursed
about Sir John's campaign in Spain and Portugal, telling how each little
skirmish befell; and of Sir John himself, and General Baird and General
Paget, and Colonel Vivian his own commanding officer, and what kind men
they were; and of the last bloody stand-up at Corunna, and so forth, as
if neither could have enough.
"But all this had to come to an end in the late summer, for the boy,
John Christian, being now well and strong again, must go up to Plymouth
to report himself. 'Twas his own wish (for I believe King George had
forgotten all about him), but his friend wouldn't hold him back. As for
the trumpeter, my father had made an arrangement to take him on as a
lodger as soon as the boy left; and on the morning fixed for the start
he was up at the door here by five o'clock, with his trumpet slung by
his side, and all the rest of his belongings in a small valise. A Monday
morning it was, and after breakfast he had fixed to walk with the boy
some way on the road toward Helston, where the coach started. My father
left them at breakfast together, and went out to meat the pig, and do a
few odd morning jobs of that sort. When he came back, the boy was still
at table, and the trumpeter standing here by the chimney-place with the
drum and trumpet in his hands, hitched together just as they be at this
moment.
"'Look at this,' he says to my father, showing him the lock; 'I picked
it up off a starving brass-worker in Lisbon, and it is not one of your
common locks that one word of six letters will open at any time. There's
_janius_ in this lock; for you've only to make the ring spell any
six-letter word you please, and snap down the lock upon that, and never
a soul can open it--not the maker, even--until somebody comes along that
knows the word you snapped it on. Now, Johnny, here's goin', and he
leaves his drum behind him; for, though he can make pretty music on it,
the parchment sags in wet weather, by reason of the sea-water getting at
it; an' if he carries it to Plymouth, they'll only condemn it and give
him another. And as for me, I shan't have the heart to put lip to the
trumpet any more when Johnny's gone. So we've chosen a word together,
and locked 'em together upon that; and, by your leave, I'll hang 'em
here together on the hook over your fireplace. Maybe Johnny'll come
back; maybe not. Maybe, if he comes, I'll be dead an' gone, an' he'll
take 'em apart an' try their music for old sake's sake. But if he never
comes, nobody can separate 'em; for nobody besides knows the word. And
if you marry and have sons, you can tell 'em that here are tied together
the souls of Johnny Christian, drummer, of the Marines, and William
George Tallifer, once trumpeter of the Queen's Own Hussars. Amen.'
"With that he hung the two instruments 'pon the hook there; and the boy
stood up and thanked my father and shook hands; and the pair went forth
of the door, toward Helston.
"Somewhere on the road they took leave of one another; but nobody saw
the parting, nor heard what was said between them. About three in the
afternoon the trumpeter came walking back over the hill; and by the time
my father came home from the fishing, the cottage was tidied up and the
tea ready, and the whole place shining like a new pin. From that time
for five years he lodged here with my father, looking after the house
and tilling the garden; and all the while he was steadily failing, the
hurt in his head spreading, in a manner, to his limbs. My father watched
the feebleness growing on him, but said nothing. And from first to last
neither spake a word about the drummer, John Christian; nor did any
letter reach them, nor word of his doings.