The Drummer's Coat Part 2

Nor could all her endeavours succeed in making him utter a word.

"He must recover his speech presently," she said, much puzzled. "He has not lost the power of uttering sound."

"No, no, my Lady," said Mrs. Fry very confidently. "He can scream and holly loud enough. I bate mun last night, poor soul, because he wouldn't spake, and he scritched so loud that Mrs. Mugford come in, and asked me what I was 'bout killing a pig at that time o' night; though she knows very well that it was my pig that was drownded in the mill-leat back along in the spring. So I says to her, 'Mrs. Mugford,'

I says, 'if those that talks about pigs would look to their own boys, they wouldn't run off to sea and come home with the shak.u.ms,' I says; 'and if they would keep their fowls from scratting about in their neighbours' gardens,' I says, 'they wouldn't run about crying for lost chimases.' For there's hardly a day but I drive her fowls from my garden, my Lady. And you mind her son, my Lady, him that went for a marine, and what terrible shak.u.ms he had when he comed back from the Injies. And I consider that they stolen chimases is a jidgment, my Lady, a jidgment for the mischief her fowls have done in my garden--"

"Stop, stop," said Lady Eleanor, whose eye had wandered to a shady spot under the trees where the Corporal was lunging a steady old Exmoor pony round and round, while d.i.c.k, with a pair of long gaiters added to his attire, sat firmly on its back, though without saddle or stirrups.

"Tell me; has anything happened to the boy to frighten him?"

"Well, my Lady," answered Mrs. Fry, "I consider myself that the boy's overlooked."

"Overlooked?" said Lady Eleanor.

"Yes, my Lady. For they do tell me that the woman that comed through the village yesterday with the mazed body told my Tommy, 'You don't spake again,' she says, 'till I tell 'ee.'"

"Oh! nonsense," said Lady Eleanor, "don't think of such stuff."

"But she _did_," persisted Mrs. Fry, "and sure enough the boy can't spake. She's overlooked mun! she's awitched mun, you may depend, my Lady. And I'm sure if you'd a known who they two was, you wouldn't never have let mun go. She's the old witch to Cossacombe, that's what she is, though she a'nt never been this way afore, and the man's as bad as she is, I'll be bound, though I never heard tell of he afore."

"Why, it was easy to see that he was but a poor half-witted creature,"

said Lady Eleanor, "as harmless as a child; his mother told me that she hardly let him out of her sight."

"Well, my Lady, 'tis all very well to say that the man's mazed,"

answered Mrs. Fry almost forgetting her manners in her excitement, "but what took mun down among the boys? Why, to take the ale from them!

And what is ales but sarpints, my Lady?" said Mrs. Fry throwing out her hands, "and what makes the man so friendly with sarpints, that he must come to save mun? _We_ know, do you and I, my Lady, who is the old sarpint and the father of sarpints. And then what was he doing with that strange baste on his shoulder, my Lady?"

"Why, it was only a tame squirrel," said Lady Eleanor.

"Squirrel, my lady," said Mrs. Fry mysteriously. "Aye, 'twas a squirrel; but who knows but what it mayn't be a dragin when it gets 'oom?"

"A squirrel turn into a dragon?" said Lady Eleanor. "I never heard such childish stuff in my life; and I wouldn't have believed that a sensible woman like you could have thought of such a thing."

"Well, I won't say as it _was_ a dragin, my Lady," said Mrs. Fry, a little abashed, "but they do say that the witch has to do with dragins.

She comes from out over the moor some place, she doth; and though she's a seen on times about Cossacombe, no man can tell where she liveth nor dare go sarch for mun. Jimmy Beer went out to look for mun two year agone in the dimmet after Cossacombe revel, but the fog came down so thick as a bag; and while he was a-wandering, a dragin (for so he saith it was, though I never seed a dragin myself) pa.s.sed so close to mun as I be to you, my Lady, and when he looked to the ground he saw the mark of his cloven hoof so plain as could be. And he was pixy-led all that night, my Lady, was the old Jimmy, and when he come home all his money was gone; so I reckon that the pixies is in league with the witches."

"I suspect that Jimmy had drunk too much cider," said Lady Eleanor severely; "he should have kept sober or stuck to the road, and then he would not have brought back foolish stories about pixies and witches.

I wonder that you can believe in such things."

"I know mun too well, my Lady," said Mrs. Fry mournfully. "There was my pig back in the spring, so rasonable a pig as ever ate mate, until the white witch to Gratton overlooked mun. And I never did the white witch no harm, nor the pig didn't neither; but as they was driving the pig along the road--and you know what pigs is, driving, my Lady,--the white witch comes riding on his one-eyed donkey; and the pig runned against the donkey, and the old man[1] muttered something or 'nother--"

"But the old man is dead, I was told," said Lady Eleanor.

"'Eas fai! and so he is, my Lady, and a terrible job they had to bury mun--thunder, lightning and hailstones so big as sloes. Dead he is, and I won't jidge mun--but not afore he'd a doed the mischief, for but three weeks afterward my pig falls into the mill-leat. So there's my pig a drownded, and my Tommy so dumb as a haddock--can't go to school, can't do nought but ate his mate and sit in the corner for all the world like a moulting hen. Ah, they witches! I wish they was a-burned, I do." And she hid her face in her ap.r.o.n and sobbed.

"Hush, hus.h.!.+" said Lady Eleanor gently; but just then she was startled by a little cry from Elsie; and there was d.i.c.k, who had just leaped his pony over a low bar, tilted right forward on the pony's neck. "Sit fast, sir, sit fast," cried the Corporal, as d.i.c.k floundered to regain his seat; and with a desperate effort the boy recovered himself and sat up, flushed and smiling. Elsie clapped her hands with delight, and a strange man's voice shouted "Bravo!" at the sound of which Lady Eleanor started and coloured for a moment.

"'Tis surely his lords.h.i.+p from Fitzdenys Court," said Mrs. Fry, who had lowered her ap.r.o.n a little. "'Eas, 'tis. Now, my Lady, do 'ee plase to spake to mun about my Tommy; for it's a poor job if his lords.h.i.+p can't do something for the boy, and he the lord-lieutenant as can call out the milishy any time."

And as she spoke two gentlemen came cantering up through the park; so Lady Eleanor bade Mrs. Fry take Tommy to the back-door and get something for him and herself to eat.

[1] It is a fallacy to suppose that a white witch, in Devon, at any rate, is necessarily a woman. The few that I have known were men.

CHAPTER IV

The two gentlemen dismounted at the gate giving their horses to their groom, and then walked towards Lady Eleanor together. Both were dressed in blue coats, buff waistcoats, and broad-brimmed white hats, and wore riding trousers strapped very tightly over their boots. They were evidently father and son, though the elder seemed almost as young and alert as the younger. The old gentleman took off his hat, bent his grey head over Lady Eleanor's out-stretched hand, and kissed it with the old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy which has now vanished. Then beckoning the younger man forward, he said:

"I bring you back an old friend with a new t.i.tle, Lady Eleanor. He has just returned from India with a new scar on the right shoulder to balance the old scar on the left, and with a letter from the Commander-in-Chief, which he is too modest to show to his friends and too proud to show to his enemies, if he has any--_Colonel_ George Fitzdenys."

And the younger man came forward, tall, lean, wiry, and erect as the Corporal himself. He wore the moustache which showed him to be a Light Dragoon, and looked every inch a soldier; but though he could not have been more than three or four and thirty, he had the sad expression of a man who has found the years long. Still bronzed and brown though his face was, he blushed just a little as he caught his father's proud glance at him, and bent in his turn over Lady Eleanor's hand.

"Welcome back, Colonel Fitzdenys," she said very quietly; "we have not lost sight of you in the Gazettes through all these years; and you are quite recovered from your wound, I hope."

"Wound! it was nothing," he said, "an arrow in the shoulder which your boy would have laughed at."

And then Lady Eleanor beckoned to the children to come up; and old Lord Fitzdenys gave d.i.c.k two fingers and Elsie one, for he said that if her hand was like her mother's it could not hold more. But Colonel George gave d.i.c.k his whole hand, and bent down to kiss Elsie's as he had kissed her mother's, which won her little heart completely.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bent down to kiss Elsie's as he had kissed her mother's.]

"Now, my dear lady," said the old gentleman, "I must ask you for the favour of a few minutes' private conversation."

"And I will stay with the children," said Colonel George, "for I want to make friends again."

d.i.c.k and Elsie were a little shy at being left alone with a stranger; but before he could say a word to them the Corporal appeared leading the pony towards the stable. He saluted Colonel Fitzdenys, and was going on, but the Colonel at once called to him by name and shook his hand warmly, while the Corporal beamed with pleasure, and said how glad he was to see his honour returned in good health.

"Oh! do you know the Corporal?" asked d.i.c.k timidly.

"Know the Corporal?" said Colonel George. "I should think I did know him, and a fine, brave fellow he is. Why, he saved my life once, he and your father. I was lieutenant in your father's troop, and at the very first skirmish in which we were engaged in the war, I was. .h.i.t here, in the shoulder, so that I could not hold my reins. My horse ran away with me, right into the middle of the French, and there was not another horse in the regiment that could catch him, except your father's horse, Billy Pitt. But he came galloping after me as hard as he could ride, and caught him; and Brimacott, who was his servant, followed as fast as he could, and between them they brought me back from the middle of the enemy, or perhaps I shouldn't be here now. So I have good reason to remember Brimacott and Billy Pitt. Do you remember Billy Pitt?"

"He's here in the stable," said both the children in a breath.

"Then let us go and see Billy Pitt, for he's a very old friend of mine," said the Colonel, and away he walked to the stable with the children following him. The old horse seemed to know him, for he p.r.i.c.ked his ears and kept nuzzling with his nose all over the Colonel's coat, until he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out an apple for him. "Look there," said the Colonel, pa.s.sing his hand along the scar on the horse's neck. "The time came for Billy to get wounded and for me to look after him, as he had saved me. That was at Salamanca." He stopped for a minute and laid his hands on the children's shoulders.

"Poor Billy had lost his master, you know, and came galloping up to me with his saddle empty, for he knew my horse well. And then he remained by my side, moving when I moved and stopping when I stopped, and charging with us when we charged. He came out of the fight with this cut on his neck. Poor Brimacott was badly wounded in the leg, and there was no one to look after the old horse, so I sewed up Billy's wound myself and kept him. He was well long before the Corporal--I made him corporal, you know--and, indeed, poor Brimacott was never fit for rough work again, so when he went home I sent Billy with him."

Then nothing would serve the children but that Colonel Fitzdenys must ride Billy again; so a snaffle was put into his mouth and the Colonel mounted him bare-backed, and took him for a little turn in the park and leaped him over the bar, to their great delight. Then all three went back to the garden again, and the children began plying him with questions. His own poor horse was dead, the Colonel told them; he had carried him all through the Peninsular War but had been killed at Waterloo. The Colonel himself had been in the wars in India since then, and the name of the battle was Maheidpore, but the Duke of Wellington was not there. He had seen the Duke, however, only a few days before in London, but he wasn't dressed in his red coat and c.o.c.ked hat, and he believed that the Duke never slept in his red coat and c.o.c.ked hat now.

"Is the Corporal like the Duke?" asked d.i.c.k anxiously. No! the Colonel could not truthfully say that he was, but the Corporal was the bigger man of the two, which was a consolation to the children.

Then the children asked him about Boney, for Polly Short, who had been their maid, had told them that he was a "riglar monster," and she had heard it from her first cousin's wife's brother-law, who was a sergeant of Marines. But the Colonel said that Polly was wrong, for he had seen Boney himself at St. Helena, and he was not in the least like a monster, but a little fat man with a pale face and auburn hair, not nearly as big as the Corporal. And Boney had made no attempt to eat him up, but had received him with the pleasantest smile that he had ever seen, and had told him that English horses were good. "And of course he was thinking of Billy," said Elsie, "when he said that."

And then the Colonel brought out pencil and paper and drew pictures of Boney and of the Duke, and of Bheels and Pindarrees and Mahrattas and other strange people against whom he had fought in India. He also a.s.sured d.i.c.k that he had drunk puddle-water, like Lord Willoughby's men, and had been very glad to get it. Finally he produced a little silver bangle hung with curious silver coins which he put on Elsie's wrist for her very own, and a knife in a sheath for d.i.c.k. The knife was not very sharp, but then the sheath was beautiful. So that by the time when Lord Fitzdenys and Lady Eleanor came out to look for them, they found the children hanging on to the Colonel's arms and calling him Colonel George as if they had known him all their lives.

Lord Fitzdenys called Colonel George to him; and he left the children to join Lady Eleanor, who told him the story of Tommy Fry, and asked him what he made of it.

"Witchcraft, of course, is nonsense," he said, "but there are people who can wield such influence as this over others, the power of a stronger will over a weaker, I suppose. One hears of it often in India. Probably the boy will recover in a day or two, when he gets over his fright."