“I did not then,” snapped the other. “Who was they?”
“He was a roaring, fatal feller, a holy terror, a giant. He lived in the mountains but he went over the country killing things—a tiger or two at an odd time, I’m thinking—and destroying the neat condition of the world. And he had a nasty little bit of a bugle....”
“Was it the like o’ that?” demanded the other, holding out the trumpet and tapping it with his fingers.
“‘A bugle,’ I said,” replied the soldier sternly, “and every time he puffed in its tubes the noise of it was so severe the hens in the town fell dead....”
“The hens!”
“Yes, and the ducks on the ponds were overcome with emotion and sank to the bottom. One day he was in his forge driving a few nails into the shoe of an ass when he hit his little finger such a blow, a terrible blow, that it bled for a day. Then he seared the wound with his searing iron, but it was no better, and it bled for a night. I will go—says he—to the physician of Cappoquin and be sewn up with some golden wire. So he drove into Cappoquin, but when he was in it the physician was gone to a christening; there was only his daughter Mary left to attend to him, a bright good girl entirely, and when she saw the finger she said to Tobin: ‘I declare on my soul if I don’t chop it off it’s not long till you have your death.’ ‘Chop it off, then,’ says Tobin, and she did so. He came back the next day and this is how it was; the physician was gone to a wake. ‘What’s your need?’ asked Mary. He showed her his hand and it dripping with blood. ‘I declare to my God,’ said Mary, ‘if I don’t chop it off it’s short till you have your death.’ ‘Chop it off,’ says Tobin, and she struck off the hand. The day after that he drove in again, but the physician was gone to an inquest about a little matter concerning some remains that had been found. ‘What is it today, Tobin?’ and he showed her his arm bleeding in great drops. ‘I declare by the saints,’ says she, ‘that unless I chop it off you’ll die in five minutes.’ ‘Chop it off,’ says Tobin, and she struck off his arm. The next day he was back again with the stump of his arm worse than before. ‘Oh, I see what it is,’ said Mary, and going behind him she struck off his head with one blow of her father’s sharp knife and gave it to the cat.”
“That is a neat tale,” said the trumpeter. “Did you hear the story of the dirty soldier and the drummer?”
“No—” The soldier hesitated reflectively. “No, I never heard it.”
“Well, this is how it was....”
But just then the steamer began to approach the harbour, and in the hurry and scurry of preparations to land the two friends were separated and the tale was never told.