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After saying these words he began to fuss with his pipe, which did not draw well, humming to himself at the same time some absurd verses: "My love he was a draper's clerk, He came to see me after dark: Around the Park we used to stray To hear the lily-white bandsmen play. Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound, My love lies buried underground!"
For years afterwards I never passed this beach on very frequent visits without receiving a friendly handshake or a greeting. I was generally in doubt as to what the particular boatman wanted of me, but it always turned out that I was dealing with one of the brass bandsmen whose good intentions had been manifested on that pleasant evening.
We sat or lay on the after-deck while the bandsmen on the low rail or hatch maintained a continuous concert. During the several days between our first planning the trip and the going, a song had been written in honor of the junketing, and this they played scores of times before we set foot again in Papeete. It was entitled: "Himene Tatou Arcarea," which meant, "Our Festal Song."
Dick's answer was to give his hand a wave and dash right in among the smoke, two soldiers who tried to stop him just missing his arm as he plunged in. "Here, who was that?" cried the colonel, who now came up, panting. "One of the bandsmen, sir the lad must have gone mad!" "No," cried the colonel; "he must have known that someone was still there.
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.
Riley made him promises rich as the Orient beryl, and permitted him to follow the example of two of the bandsmen and pitch a cot on the trampled hay flooring of the dressing-room tent, behind the stage. There also Carl prepared breakfast on an alcohol-stove. The canvas creaked all night; negroes and small boys stuck inquisitive heads under the edge of the canvas.
Doyle's picture of the election is surely a reminiscence of Phiz's. There is the same fight between the bandsmen the drum which someone is kicking a hole in, the brass instrument used, placards, flags, and general melee. Doyle could sketch Forster admirably. Witness the drawing of the travelling party in a carriage, given by Mr.
He looked round, twinkling, for a laugh to follow what he meant for a joke; and the obsequious bandsmen uttered a sniggering kind of concreted grin, followed instantly by a loud-toned sonorous Phoomp! from the huge bell-mouth of the contra-bass. "What do you mean by that, Banks?" cried the bandmaster, as soon as there was silence, for the men had burst into a loud and general roar.
The bandsmen had always to handle the brass with woollen gloves on, to prevent getting burnt. How curious it is that the sensation of touching very hot or very cold metal is identical, and that it produces the same effect on the human skin! With thirty or more degrees of frost, great caution must be used in handling skate-blades with bare fingers if burns are to be avoided.
We heard, likewise, that the people had risen at Callinger, so we returned and walked back ten miles that day. M and I carried the child alternately. Presently Mrs. Smalley died of sunstroke. We had no food amongst us. An officer kindly lent us a horse. We were very faint. The Major died, and was buried; also the Sergeant-major and some women. The bandsmen left us on the nineteenth of June.