oon enough for our poor lads at Bayonne,' the parson answered.
'Bayonne!' cries my father, with a jump. 'Why, yes'; and the parson
told him all about a great sally the French had made on the night of
April 13th. 'Do you happen to know if the 38th Regiment was
engaged?' my father asked. 'Come, now,' said Parson Kendall,
'I didn't know you was so well up in the campaign. But, as it
happens, I _do_ know that the 38th was engaged, for 'twas they that
held a cottage and stopped the French advance.'

"Still my father held his tongue; and when, a week later, he walked
into Helston and bought a _Mercury_ off the Sherborne rider, and got
the landlord of the 'Angel' to spell out the list of killed and
wounded, sure enough, there among the killed was Drummer John
Christian, of the 38th Foot.

"After this, there was nothing for a religious man but to make a
clean breast. So my father went up to Parson Kendall and told the
whole story. The parson listened, and put a question or two, and
then asked:

"'Have you tried to open the lock since that night?'

"'I han't dared to touch it,' says my father.

"'Then come along and try.' When the parson came to the cottage here,
he took the things off the hook and tried the lock. 'Did he say
'_Bayonne_'? The word has seven letters.'

"'Not if you spell it with one 'n' as _he_ did,' says my father.

"The parson spelt it out--B-A-Y-O-N-E. 'Whew!' says he, for the lock
had fallen open in his hand.

"He stood considering it a moment, and then he says,' I tell you
what. I shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you.
You won't get no credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on
a set of fools. But if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon
a holy word that no one but me shall know, and neither drummer nor
trumpeter, dead nor alive, shall frighten the secret out of me.'

"'I wish to gracious you would, parson,' said my father.

"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock
back upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place.
He is gone long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock
is broken by force, nobody will ever separate those twain."

THE LOOE DIE-HARDS.

Captain Pond, of the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery
(familiarly known as the Looe Die-hards), put his air-cushion to his
lips and blew. This gave his face a very choleric and martial
expression.

Nevertheless, above his suffused and dist