William Tallifer were
sitting here, just as you and I, sir, are sitting now. My father had
put on his clothes a few minutes before, and was mending his spiller
by the light of the horn lantern, meaning to set off before daylight
to haul the trammel. The trumpeter hadn't been to bed at all.
Towards the last he mostly spent his nights (and his days, too)
dozing in the elbow-chair where you sit at this minute. He was
dozing then (my father said), with his chin dropped forward on his
chest, when a knock sounded upon the door, and the door opened, and
in walked an upright young man in scarlet regimentals.

"He had grown a brave bit, and his face was the colour of wood-ashes;
but it was the drummer, John Christian. Only his uniform was
different from the one he used to wear, and the figures '38' shone in
brass upon his collar.

"The drummer walked past my father as if he never saw him, and stood
by the elbow-chair and said:

"'Trumpeter, trumpeter, are you one with me?'

"And the trumpeter just lifted the lids of his eyes, and answered,
'How should I not be one with you, drummer Johnny--Johnny boy?
The men are patient. 'Till you come, I count; while you march, I
mark time; until the discharge comes.'

"'The discharge has come to-night,' 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 they
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 be