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 tonight,' 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 the 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 

 Prev. P 31/220 next