Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "Hold mun fast, brave lads!"]
The Drummer's Coat
by the
Hon. J. W. Fortescue
Author of "The Story of a Red Deer"
With illustrations by
H. M. Brock
London
MacMillan and Co., Limited
New York: The MacMillan Company
1899
_All rights reserved_
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
First Edition, November 1899.
Reprinted, December 1899.
TO
D. W.
PREFATORY NOTE
Lest a principal incident in this little tale should seem incredible,
it may be mentioned that an instance of a child being deprived of
speech for several days, at the bidding of a reputed witch, came under
the author's immediate notice less than three years ago, in a village
but three miles distant from his own home.
It may be added that the military details in Chapter XIII. are all
drawn from authentic sources, mainly from the _Recollections of
Rifleman Harris_ and the _History of the Fifty-Second Regiment_.
CASTLE HILL,
28th August, 1899.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"HOLD MUN FAST, BRAVE LADS!" . . . _Frontispiece_
BENT DOWN TO KISS ELSIE'S AS HE HAD KISSED HER MOTHER'S
"THE BIRD BEGAN TO PIPE A LITTLE TUNE"
"STILL THE WOMAN LED THEM ON"
THE DRUMMER'S COAT
CHAPTER I
In a deep wooded valley in the north of Devon stands the village of
Ashacombe. It is but a little village, of some twenty or thirty
cottages with white cob walls and low thatched roofs, running along the
sunny side of the valley for a little way, and then curving downward
across it to a little bridge of two tiny pointed arches, on the other
side of which stands a mill with a water-wheel. For a little stream
runs down this valley as down all Devonshire valleys; and as you look
up the water from the bridge you can see it winding and sparkling
through its margin of meadow, while the great oak woods hang still and
solemn above it, till some bold green headland slopes down and shuts it
from your sight; and you raise your eyes, and count fresh headlands
crossing each other right and left beyond it, fainter and fainter, till
at last they end in a little patch of purple heather, which seems to be
the end of all things.
But when you look down the water, you find that the woods no longer
cover the sunny side of the valley so thickly, but that there is open
ground like a park. There is a gate by the bridge opening on to a
narrow road, which presently ends in two great spreading yews; and
through these you can see a lych-gate, and beyond it a little grey
church with a low grey tower. Close to this gate is a lodge of grey
stone, with a winding drive which guides your eye through the trees to
the gables of a house of the same grey stone, which peer up over the
trees on the ground above the church. Then beyond it the headlands of
green wood begin to cross each other again, lower and lower, till you
can follow them no more.
So Ashacombe, as may easily be guessed, is a sleepy little village,
which sees little of the great world outside. But whatever it sees it
can see well, for the hill on which it stands is so much broken by
little clefts and hollows that some of the cottages stand level with
the road and some high above it; wherefore if you are not satisfied
with looking at anything on the road from the same level, you can go to
some neighbour's garden and gaze down upon it from above, or again you
can slip down from the road into the meadow (for the road is raised on
a wall) and scrutinise it carefully from below. Still sleepy though
the village may be, it is always beautifully neat and clean. The walls
are always of spotless white, and the thatch trim and in good repair.
The scrap of garden behind each cottage is well tended and full of
vegetables, and the scrap of garden in front gay with flowers; for
Ashacombe has never known the time when there was not a master or
mistress in the Hall who made the village their first care. Such it is
now, and such, if old pictures are to be trusted, it was with little
difference eighty years ago, at which time we are about to examine its
history.
But if visitors come to Ashacombe it is to see not the village but the
Hall, for Bracefort Hall has some fame of its own. It is a beautiful
little house, built in the time of King Henry the Sixth, and therefore
in the shape of an H, with two gables marking the end of the
downstrokes, and a short length of grey roof standing for the
cross-bar. It faces to the south, so that the little court between the
gables is a veritable sun-trap, wherein grow magnolia and jessamine;
while roses, Dutch honeysuckle, clematis and wistaria cover the whole
front of the house and almost hide the mullioned windows. But the Hall
is even more attractive within than without, for from the moment when
you enter the door you find yourself among oak panels, oak carving and
old tapestry on every side and in every room. The house has but two
storeys, so that the rooms are not very large not very high, with the
exception of the hall, which fills both storeys of the cross-bar of the
H, from the floor to the roof. The ceiling is of open work,
beautifully carved; the walls are panelled high, and at the head of
each panel is painted a coat of arms showing the marriages of many
generations of Braceforts. Above the panels at one end of the hall are
huge coats of arms carved in stone and gorgeously coloured; and at the
other end is a gallery of carved oak with the gilded pipes of an organ
shining above it. A great part of the outer wall is taken up by a very
large mullioned window with quaint round panes, many of them filled
with old stained glass; and on the wall opposite to it is a great
fireplace of carved stone, the centre of it showing the crest of a
mailed arm and the motto, Dieu et bras fort.
Above this fireplace hang some curious things--stags' horns, and
weapons of bygone times, and among them a buff coat, an iron helmet, a
cuirass, and two long straight swords, which evidently belonged to one
of the gentlemen with flowing love-locks and broad collars turned down
over their mail, whose portraits are hung on each side. But below
these is a more modern helmet, such a helmet as was worn by Light
Dragoons about a century ago, of lacquered leather with a huge comb of
fur, a scarlet turban wound about it, and a short plume of red and
white. Also there is a curved sword with a crimson sash draped round
it; and below these again, neatly spread in a glass case, is a quaint
little child's coat of yellow, with red collar, cuffs and lapels, two
tiny red wings at the shoulders and two tiny red tails behind; which
garment an inscription, now much faded, declares to be a drummer's coat
of the time of the Peninsular War.
Now it is easy to guess to whom the Light Dragoon's helmet and sword
and sash belonged, for immediately on one side of it is a portrait of a
very handsome man with dark hair and eyes, dressed in a blue coat with
silver braid, with the crimson sash round his waist, the curved sword
at his side, and the identical helmet under his arm; and you may read
underneath the picture that it represents Captain Richard Bracefort,
who was killed at the battle of Salamanca. Close by, too, is a picture
of his charger, Billy Pitt, which he rode in the battle, and which
lived, as is written on the picture, for many years afterwards. Again,
as a pendant to the Captain's picture hangs a portrait of a lady,
showing a beautiful oval face with three chestnut curls on each side of
it and a mass of chestnut hair above, and two blue eyes as clear and as
pure as a child's; and underneath this portrait is written the name of
Lady Eleanor Bracefort, wife and widow of Captain Richard the Light
Dragoon.
But how the drummer's coat ever found its way into Bracefort Hall there
is nothing to show. Nevertheless by that little coat there hangs a
tale; and though that tale is now nearly eighty years old, both the
Hall and the village are so little changed that it is perhaps worth the
telling.