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At last, though, the pulsations of the well-belaboured drum came nearer and were mingled with the mournfully plaintive notes of the wind instruments being blown by the band, the performers seated in a tall triumphal car decorated in scarlet and gold, and ornamented by a gilt carving meant to represent the giant anaconda of South America embracing and crushing the twenty bandsmen of Ramball's show, gentlemen who, by the way, wore a richly worsted-embroidered uniform of scarlet baize, the braid being yellow ochre of the deepest dye.
And so the practice went on Dick, feeling that he was making enemies all round till, about an hour after, when he was in the long-room, and half a dozen of the bandsmen came in together, looked at him, then at one another, and one of them said "I'm glad you've joined." "We've been thinking it over, and we're going to see if we can't work up some better music now.
"Now, sir, if you please," said the old officer, and Richard gave a start, raised the flute to his lips, and blew a few feeble notes as he vainly tried to collect himself conscious, too, now that the bandsmen were craning forward to listen.
Now thousands of feet and bayonets moved and halted at the officers' command, turned with banners flying, formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of hoofs and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan, or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with the smell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position.
Lubley, the old lady and complacent unofficial chaperon of the show, Eve was going to imitate Carl and the two bandsmen, and sleep in the dressing-room tent, over half of which was devoted to the women of the company.
"It is very horrid in some things," thought Dick Smithson as he would think of his position at night in the comparative silence of his narrow bed comparative silence, for each of his brother bandsmen had a habit of performing nocturnes on nasal instruments in a way not pleasing to a weary, sleepless person "very horrid."
Their band marched at the head of the procession through the streets of the village. They played all the most seditious tunes there are, and went on playing for half a mile outside the village. The police, headed by Mr. Hinde, followed them. At the cross-roads there was a halt. The bandsmen laid down the instruments very carefully on a pile of stones beside the road.
At any rate, hither he came, and for the next three years picked up a livelihood, we know not how, as many other excellent German bandsmen have done before and since him. Our information about his early life is very meagre, and at this period we lose sight of him for a while altogether. About the year 1760, however, we catch another incidental glimpse of the young musician in his adopted country.
Close up to the High Barrack gates, then, the bandsmen stood upon the pavement, while the companies of the 310th marched up the road. Dick Smithson was resting with the men of his side, while the others were concluding their part.
Among other forms of inexpensive advertisement, he suggested that, for the first day, a band should be engaged to play in the front room over the shop, with the windows open; and he undertook to find amateur bandsmen who would undertake the job on very moderate terms. Not many days elapsed before the old name had disappeared from the house front, giving place to that of Jollyman.
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