a stray note of a cornet now and then.

"Come, play up louder, old man; can't hear. Nothing like a bit of music
now and then. That's one good in being a soldier: you do have a band,
while we poor beggars have to carry a rifle without. But there, a man
can drop this when he likes, and a soldier can't."

He took a turn or two up and down, and stopped again to look up the
steep cliff slope running high above him from the shelf on which his
duty lay, this being over one of the spots where it would be possible
for a daring cragsman to get down to the sea.

"Shouldn't mind a glass of beer," he thought. "Salt in the air, I
suppose. Well, I can get that by and by. Lord, what's a fellow got to
grumble about? How would it be to do one's bit inside! Some of 'em
pays pretty dear for their little games, and one can't help feeling
sorry for one now and then. Bah! lot's of 'em are best there. They'd
think no more of coming behind me in the dark and chucking me into the
sea than kissing their hands. Ugh!" he ejaculated, with a shudder, as
he gripped his piece more tightly, and gave a sharp glance; round and up
above him at the black crags. "What a fool I am to think of such
things, only a chap can't help it in such a lonesome place. Well, one
side is safe," he muttered, with a half laugh. "So are the others,
stupid poor devils! Not much chance for any of them coming out for a
quiet pipe to-night."

A faint note or two from the distant band on the pier, floated to the
warder, and he went on musing:

"Now, I dessay if I was over yonder having a smoke and listening to that
music I should think nothing of it, and be for getting back somewhere to
have a bit o' supper; but because I'm here and can't get near it every
tootle of that old cornet sounds 'eavenly; and the lights seem grand.
It was just the same down at home; there was our big old apple tree, the
Gennet-Moyle, as I could get up when I liked, or knock as many down as I
pleased with mother's clothes props--good apples they was, too; but they
wouldn't do--one always wanted to get over Thompson's walls to smug
those old hard baking pears, which was like nibbling the knobs off the
top of the bedposts."

He laughed until his shoulders shook.

"Poor old Thompson!" he said half aloud. "Said he'd have some of us put
in prison for stealing. Wonder whether some of these poor beggars began
that way and then went on. Humph! maybe. Well, they should have known
better.