"Yes, sir," said my host, the quarryman, reaching down the relics
from their hook in the wall over the chimneypiece; "they've hung here
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, surely."
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 wreck-wood 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 party-colored sling, though fretted
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 black and scented with wood-smoke, was limp and
mildewed; and I began to tighten up the straps--under which the
drumsticks 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 he locked 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, lighted a short pipe, and went on, with his eyes
fixed on the dancing violet flames:
"Yes, he'd ha' been about thirty year old in January, eighteen '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 oarweed 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
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 topgallants 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 thereabout
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 mean by
crying stale fish at that rate?'
"'But 'tis a wreck, I tell 'ee.'
"'I've a-zeed '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 he 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 horses over first to lighten the ship, for a score of dead horses
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 carried away, or were cut away to ease her, I don't
rightly know. 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 quarterdeck, 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 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 Seventh
Hussars, that had been fighting out there with Sir John Moore. The
seas had rolled her further 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 quarterdeck. 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 very 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 further 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. 'Hullo!' says my father, 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 Manila
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 the bundle he'd dropped, 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 seaman 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 Coverack; 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, and answered up: 'If I'd a tav 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 o' 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 I had 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 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 Seventh 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 a 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 rear-guard, 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 seasick aboard the transports, an' watch the
infantry in the thick o' the caper. Very well they behaved,
too--specially the Fourth Regiment, an' the Forty-Second 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 of sticks.'
"The very next day the trumpeter marched into Helston, and got a
carpenter there to turn him a pair of box-wood drumsticks 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 off 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 of 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 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 sat
with the rings 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 rings
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, and 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
out 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.
"The rest of the tale you're free to believe, sir, or not, as you
please. It stands upon my father's words, and he always declared he
was ready to kiss the Book upon it, before judge and jury. He said,
too, that he never had the wit to make up such a yarn; and he defied
any one to explain about the lock, in particular, by any other tale.
But you shall judge for yourself.
"My father said that about three o'clock in the morning, April
fourteenth, of the year 'fourteen, he and William Tallifer were
sitting here, just as you and I, sir, are sitting now. My father had
put on his clothes a few minutes before, and was mending his spiller
by the light of the horn lantern, meaning to set off before daylight
to haul the trammel. The trumpeter hadn't been to bed at all.
Toward the last he mostly spent his nights (and his days, too) dozing
in the elbow-chair where you sit at this minute. He was dozing then
(my father said) with his chin dropped forward on his chest, when a
knock sounded upon the door, and the door opened, and in walked an
upright young man in scarlet regimentals.
"He had grown a brave bit, and his face the color of wood-ashes; but
it was the drummer, John Christian. Only his uniform was different
from the one he used to wear, and the figures '38' shone in brass
upon his collar.
"The drummer walked past my father as if he never saw him, and stood
by the elbow-chair and said:
"'Trumpeter, trumpeter, are you one with us?'
"And the trumpeter just lifted the lids of his eyes, and answered:
'How should I not be one with you, drummer Johnny--Johnny boy? If
you come, I count; if you march, I mark time; until the discharge
comes.'
"'The discharge has come to-night,' said the drummer; 'and the word
is Corunna no longer.' And stepping to the chimney-place, he unhooked
the drum and trumpet, and began to twist the brass rings of the lock,
spelling the word aloud, so--'C-O-R-U-N-A.' When he had fixed the
last letter, the padlock opened in his hand.
"'Did you know, trumpeter, that, when I came to Plymouth, they put me
into a line regiment?'
"'The 38th is a good regiment,' answered the old Hussar, still in his
dull voice; 'I went back with them from Sahagun to Corunna. At
Corunna they stood in General Fraser's division, on the right. They
behaved well."
"'But I'd fain see the Marines again,' says the drummer, handing him
the trumpet; 'and you, you shall call once more for the Queen's Own.
Matthew,' he says, suddenly, turning on my father--and when he
turned, my father saw for the first time that his scarlet jacket had
a round hole by the breast-bone, and that the blood was welling
there--'Matthew, we shall want your boat.'
"Then my father rose on his legs like a man in a dream, while they
two slung on, the one his drum, and t'other his trumpet. He took the
lantern and went quaking before them down to the shore, and they
breathed heavily behind him; and they stepped into his boat, and my
father pushed off.
"'Row you first for Dolor Point,' says the drummer. So my father
rowed them past the white houses of Coverack to Dolor Point, and
there, at a word, lay on his oars. And the trumpeter, William
Tallifer, put his trumpet to his mouth and sounded the reveille. The
music of it was like rivers running.
"'They will follow,' said the drummer. 'Matthew, pull you now for
the Manacles.'
"So my father pulled for the Manacles, and came to an easy close
outside Carn Du. And the drummer took his sticks and beat a tattoo,
there by the edge of the reef; and the music of it was like a rolling
chariot.
"'That will do,' says he, breaking off; 'they will follow. Pull now
for the shore under Gunner's Meadow.'
"Then my father pulled for the shore and ran his boat in under
Gunner's Meadow. And they stepped out, all three, and walked up to
the meadow. By the gate the drummer halted, and began his tattoo
again, looking out toward the darkness over the sea.
"And while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came
up out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and
foot, and formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the
graves and formed up--drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale
Hussars, riding their horses, all lean and shadowy. There was no
clatter of hoofs or accoutrements, my father said, but a soft sound
all the while like the beating of a bird's wing; and a black shadow
lay like a pool about the feet of all. The drummer stood upon a
little knoll just inside the gate, and beside him the tall trumpeter,
with hand on hip, watching them gather; and behind them both my
father, clinging to the gate. When no more came, the drummer stopped
playing, and said, 'Call the roll.'
"Then the trumpeter stepped toward the end man of the rank and
called, 'Troop Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons,' and the man answered in
a thin voice, 'Here.'
"'Troop Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons, how is it with you?'
"The man answered, 'How should it be with me? When I was young, I
betrayed a girl; and when I was grown, I betrayed a friend, and for
these I must pay. But I died as a man ought. God save the King!'
"The trumpeter called to the next man, 'Trooper Henry Buckingham,'
and the next man answered, 'Here.'
"'Trooper Henry Buckingham, how is it with you?'
"'How should it be with me? I was a drunkard, and I stole, and in
Lugo, in a wine-shop, I killed a man. But I died as a man should.
God save the King!'
"So the trumpeter went down the line; and when he had finished, the
drummer took it up, hailing the dead Marines in their order. Each
man answered to his name, and each man ended with 'God save the
King!' When all were hailed, the drummer stepped back to his mound,
and called:
"'It is well. You are content, and we are content to join you.
Wait, now, a little while.'
"With this he turned and ordered my father to pick up the lantern,
and lead the way back. As my father picked it up, he heard the ranks
of the dead men cheer and call, 'God save the King!' all together,
and saw them waver and fade back into the dark, like a breath fading
off a pane.
"But when they came back here to the kitchen, and my father set the
lantern down, it seemed they'd both forgot about him. For the
drummer turned in the lantern-light--and my father could see the
blood still welling out of the hole in his breast--and took the
trumpet-sling from around the other's neck, and locked drum and
trumpet together again, choosing the letters on the lock very
carefully. While he did this, he said:
"'The word is no more Corunna, but Bayonne. As you left out an "n"
in Corunna, so must I leave out an "n" in Bayonne.' And before
snapping the padlock, he spelt out the word slowly--'B-A-Y-O-N-E.'
After that, he used no more speech; but turned and hung the two
instruments back on the hook; and then took the trumpeter by the arm;
and the pair walked out into the darkness, glancing neither to right
nor left.
"My father was on the point of following, when he heard a sort of
sigh behind him; and there, sitting in the elbow-chair, was the very
trumpeter he had just seen walk out by the door! If my father's
heart jumped before, you may believe it jumped quicker now. But
after a bit, he went up to the man asleep in the chair and put a hand
upon him. It was the trumpeter in flesh and blood that he touched;
but though the flesh was warm, the trumpeter was dead.
"Well, sir, they buried him three days after; and at first my father
was minded to say nothing about his dream (as he thought it). But
the day after the funeral, he met Parson Kendall coming from Helston
market; and the parson called out: 'Have 'ee heard the news the coach
brought down this mornin'?' 'What news?' says my father. 'Why, that
peace is agreed upon.' 'None too soon,' says my father. 'Not soon
enough for our poor lads at Bayonne,' the parson answered.
'Bayonne!' cries my father, with a jump. 'Why, yes;' and the parson
told him all about a great sally the French had made on the night of
April 13th. 'Do you happen to know if the 38th Regiment was
engaged?' my father asked. 'Come, now,' said Parson Kendall, 'I
didn't know you was so well up in the campaign. But, as it happens,
I do know that the 38th was engaged, for 'twas they that held a
cottage and stopped the French advance.'
"Still my father held his tongue; and when, a week later, he walked
into Helston and bought a 'Mercury' off the Sherborne rider, and got
the landlord of the 'Angel' to spell out the list of killed and
wounded, sure enough, there among the killed was Drummer John
Christian, of the 38th Foot.
"After this there was nothing for a religious man but to make a clean
breast. So my father went up to Parson Kendall, and told the whole
story. The parson listened, and put a question or two, and then
asked:
"'Have you tried to open the lock since that night?'
"'I haven't dared to touch it,' says my father.
"'Then come along and try.' When the parson came to the cottage
here, he took the things off the hook and tried the lock. 'Did he
say "Bayonne?" The word has seven letters.'
"'Not if you spell it with one "n" as he did,' says my father.
"The parson spelt it out--'B-A-Y-O-N-E.' 'Whew!' says he, for the
lock had fallen open in his hand.
"He stood considering it a moment, and then he says: 'I tell you
what. I shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You
won't get no credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a
set of fools. But if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a
holy word that no one but me shall know, and neither drummer nor
trumpeter, dead or alive, shall frighten the secret out of me.'
"'I wish to heaven you would, parson,' said my father.
"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock
back upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He
is gone long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is
broken by force, nobody will ever separate those two."