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At the close of the service he went in great state down the center aisle, preceded by the gorgeous beadle a character that is always awe-inspiring to me in these churches, being a cross between a magnificent drum-major and a verger and two persons in livery, and followed by a train of splendidly attired priests, six of whom bore up his long train of purple silk.
This letter also was paraded before his sister-in-law, for did it not assert that he was no mean, contemptible scallywag, but a man of real worth? Labanya exclaimed again in feigned surprise: "Which of your friends wrote it now? Oh, come is it the Ticket Collector, or the hide merchant, or is it the drum-major of the Fort?" "You ought to send in a contradiction, I think," said Nilratan.
He had at least six years' more work in him, and carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a Drum-Major of the Guards. The Regiment had paid Rs. 1,200 for him. But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was cast in due form and replaced by a washy, bay beast as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck, rat-tail, and cow-hocks.
He had at least six years' more work in him, and carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a Drum-Major of the Guards. The Regiment had paid Rs.1200 for him. But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was cast in due form and replaced by a washy, bay beast, as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck, rat-tail, and cow-hocks.
He wrote a poem on this pretty little flower, and it was set to music by Drum-Major Gurney, and a quartette sang it before a large audience, who expressed themselves delighted with it. I can only remember two verses, which are as follows: This was another triumph for us. The Premier, Hon. Jos. Howe, complimented the writer, and added some graceful remarks.
Of this original I collected the following particulars: Before the Revolution he was a soldier in the regiment of Flanders, from which he deserted and became a corporal in another regiment; in 1793 he was a drum-major in one of the battalions in garrison in Paris.
"Has Mam Vermichel spied too much dust on your back, that you're running away from your four-fifths, for I can't call her your better half, that woman! What brings you here at this hour, drum-major?" "Politics, always politics," replied Vermichel, who seemed accustomed to such pleasantries.
Bid your band silence that dead march or, by my word, they shall have sufficient cause for their lugubrious strains! Silence it, sirrah!" "Please your honor," answered the drum-major, whose rubicund visage had lost all its color, "the fault is none of mine. I and my band are all here together, and I question whether there be a man of us that could play that march without book.
I wanted Buche to eat with us too, and the six men belonging to our mess, who had all escaped with only bruises and scratches, consented. Padoue, the drum-major, said, laughing, "Veterans are always veterans, they never come empty-handed."
Just then I heard a shout and a rushing sound; a wild-looking figure is descending the hill with terrible bounds; it is a lad of some fifteen years; he is bare-headed, and his red uncombed hair stands on end like hedgehogs’ bristles: his frame is lithy, like that of an antelope, but he has prodigious breadth of chest; he wears a military undress, that of the regiment, even of a drummer, for it is wild Davy, whom a month before I had seen enlisted on Leith Links to serve King George with drum and drumstick as long as his services might be required, and who, ere a week had elapsed, had smitten with his fist Drum-Major Elzigood, who, incensed at his inaptitude, had threatened him with his cane; he has been in confinement for weeks, this is the first day of his liberation, and he is now descending the hill with horrid bounds and shoutings; he is now about five yards distant, and the baker, who apprehends that something dangerous is at hand, prepares himself for the encounter; but what avails the strength of a baker, even full grown?—what avails the defence of a wicker shield?—what avails the wheel-spoke, should there be an opportunity of using it, against the impetus of an avalanche or a cannon-ball?—for to either of these might that wild figure be compared, which, at the distance of five yards, sprang at once with head, hands, feet and body, all together, upon the champion of the New Town, tumbling him to the earth amain.
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