sir, I can speak the names so pat, is that my father learnt them
by heart afterward from the trumpeter, who was always talking about
Mayorga and Rueda and Bennyventy.--'We made the rear-guard, after
General Paget; and drove the French every time; and all the infantry did
was to sit about in wine-shops till we whipped 'em out, an' steal an'
straggle an' play the tom-fool in general. And when it came to a
stand-up fight at Corunna, 'twas we that had to stay seasick aboard the
transports, an' watch the infantry in the thick o' the caper. Very well
they behaved, too--'specially the Fourth Regiment, an' the Forty-Second
Highlanders and the Dirty Half-Hundred. Oh, ay; they're decent
regiments, all three. But the Queen's Own Hussars is a tearin' fine
regiment. So you played on your drum when the ship was goin' down?
Drummer John Christian, I'll have to get you a new pair of sticks.'"

The very next day the trumpeter marched into Helston, and got a
carpenter there to turn him a pair of box-wood drumsticks for the boy.
And this was the beginning of one of the most curious friendships you
ever heard tell of. Nothing delighted the pair more than to borrow a
boat off my father and pull out to the rocks where the 'Primrose' and
the 'Despatch' had struck and sunk; and on still days 'twas pretty to
hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer playing his
tattoo--for they always took their music with them--and the trumpeter
practicing calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel. But if the
weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and talking;
leastwise the youngster listened while the other discoursed about Sir
John's campaign in Spain and Portugal, telling how each little skirmish
befell; and of Sir John himself, and General Baird, and General Paget,
and Colonel Vivian, his own commanding officer, and what kind of men
they were; and of the last bloody stand-up at Corunna, and so forth, as
if neither could have enough.

But all this had to come to an end in the late summer, for the boy, John
Christian, being now well and strong again, must go up to Plymouth to
report himself. 'Twas his own wish (for I believe King George had
forgotten all about him), but his friend wouldn't hold him back. As for
the trumpeter, my father had made an arrangement to take him on as
lodger, as soon as the boy left; and on the morning fixed for the start,
he was up at the door here by five o'clock, with his trumpet slung by
his side, a