had accidentally beheld him going to bed in that state having been frightened into fits.

‘Well, if the young woman don’t want to see yer head, maybe she’d like to hear yer arm?’ continued Cripplestraw, earnest to please her.

‘Hey?’ said the corporal.

‘Your arm hurt too?’ cried Anne.

‘Knocked to a pummy at the same time as my head,’ said Tullidge dispassionately.

‘Rattle yer arm, corpel, and show her,’ said Cripplestraw.

‘Yes, sure,’ said the corporal, raising the limb slowly, as if the glory of exhibition had lost some of its novelty, though he was willing to oblige. Twisting it mercilessly about with his right hand he produced a crunching among the bones at every motion, Cripplestraw seeming to derive great satisfaction from the ghastly sound.

‘How very shocking!’ said Anne, painfully anxious for him to leave off.

‘O, it don’t hurt him, bless ye. Do it, corpel?’ said Cripplestraw.

‘Not a bit,’ said the corporal, still working his arm with great energy.

‘There’s no life in the bones at all. No life in ’em, I tell her, corpel!’

‘None at all.’

‘They be as loose as a bag of ninepins,’ explained Cripplestraw in continuation. ‘You can feel ’em quite plain, Mis’ess Anne. If ye would like to, he’ll undo his sleeve in a minute to oblege ye?’

‘O no, no, please not! I quite understand,’ said the young woman.

‘Do she want to hear or see any more, or don’t she?’ the corporal inquired, with a sense that his time was getting wasted.

Anne explained that she did not on any account; and managed to escape from the corner.

V. THE SONG AND THE STRANGER

The trumpet-major now contrived to place himself near her, Anne’s presence having evidently been a great pleasure to him since the moment of his first seeing her. She was quite at her ease with him, and asked him if he thought that Buonaparte would really come during the summer, and many other questions which the 

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