At the disembarkation passengers and soldiers crowded on the pier awaiting the boat train. The harbour was full of lights; the moon was still high in the heavens, but her glory faded as the sun began to rise. The thick densities of the night sky quivered into frail blues, violet and silver were mingled in the sea, the buildings on the wharf looked strange; icily, bitterly grey. The trumpeter ran about in the bleak air seeking the “rotten matchbox,” but he could not find him. He comforted himself by executing some castigating blares upon his instrument. The hollow wharves and the pier staging echoed with acrid sound that pleased his simple heart. He blew and blew and blew until he was surrounded by people watching him strain his determined eyes and inflate his pale cheeks—all of them secretly hoping that the ones might fall out or the others might crack. Suddenly he caught sight of the now-sobered miner, quite close to him, almost touching him! The call he was blowing faded with a stupid squeak. The world began to flame again ... when an officer burst into the circle, demanding to know who he was, where from, and what in all the realm of blasphemous things he meant by tootling in that infernal manner on that infernal thing.
The trumpeter drew himself proudly to attention and saluted.
“Discharged I am, sir, it’s with the Munsters I was, seven years, sir, with the Munsters, in the east.”
“You disgrace the Army! If I hear another tootle on that thing, I ... I’ll have you clapped in irons—I will! And ... and transported ... damn me if I don’t! You understand?”
The trumpeter meekly saluted as the captain swaggered away. At that moment the miner laid his hand upon his arm.
“What, my little man,” said he, “have you lost your teeth? Give it me now!”
And putting the trumpet to his own lips he blew a brilliant and mocking reveille, whose echoes hurtled far over the harbour and into the neighbouring hills.
“God save us!” cried the trumpeter with a furtive eye on the captain at the end of the platform, who did not appear to have heard that miraculous salvo, “it’s a great grand breath you’ve got, sir.”
THE ANGEL AND THE SWEEP