a little boy who 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 gallant dragoon could not answer, but
which he nevertheless liked to be asked. William Tremlett, who had not
enjoyed a sound night's rest since the First Consul's menace had become
known, pricked up his ears at sound of this subject, and inquired if
anybody had seen the terrible flat-bottomed boats that the enemy were to
cross in.

'My brother Robert saw several of them paddling about the shore the last
time he passed the Straits of Dover,' said the trumpet-major; and he
further startled the company by informin