, outward
bound from Portsmouth, with a fleet of transports for the Spanish
War--thirty sail, I've heard, but I've never heard what became of
them. Being handled by merchant skippers, no doubt they rode out the
gale and reached the Tagus safe and sound. Not but what the captain
of the _Primrose_ (Mein was his name) did quite right to try and
club-haul his vessel when he found himself under the land: only he
never ought to have got there if he took proper soundings. But it's
easy talking.

"The _Primrose_, sir, was a handsome vessel--for her size, one of the
handsomest in the King's service--and newly fitted out at Plymouth
Dock. So the boys had brave pickings from her in the way of
brass-work, ship's instruments, and the like, let alone some barrels
of stores not much spoiled. They loaded themselves with as much as
they could carry, and started for home, meaning to make a second
journey before the preventive men got wind of their doings and came
to spoil the fun. But as my father was passing back under the Dean,
he happened to take a look over his shoulder at the bodies there.
'Hullo,' says he, and dropped his gear: 'I do believe there's a leg
moving!' And, running fore, he stooped over the small drummer-boy
that I told you about. The poor little chap was lying there, with
his face a mass of bruises and his eyes closed: but he had shifted
one leg an inch or two, and was still breathing. So my father pulled
out a knife and cut him free from his drum--that was lashed on to him
with a double turn of Manilla rope--and took him up and carried him
along here, to this very room that we're sitting in. He lost a good
deal by this, for when he went back to fetch his bundle the
preventive men had got hold of it, and were thick as thieves along
the foreshore; so that 'twas only by paying one or two to look the
other way that he picked up anything worth carrying off: which you'll
allow to be hard, seeing that he was the first man to give news of
the wreck."

"Well, the inquiry was held, of course, and my father gave evidence;
and for the rest they had to trust to the sloop's papers: for not a
soul was saved besides the drummer-boy, and he was raving in a fever,
brought on by the cold and the fright. And the seamen and the five
troopers gave evidence about the loss of the _Despatch_. The tall
trumpeter, too, whose ribs were healing, came forward and kissed the
Book; but somehow his head had been hurt in coming ashore, a