The Bull-Pups and the Bear-Baiters and the Bully Cockytoos, and all the rest, fifty in a line, were hauling along a Lancaster gun, with a fiddler on top fiddling away for dear life, and they all bellowing a chantie that made him draw rein to listen to it. The bands in the French camp were playing merrily as he left it, but in the British lines there was not so much as a bugle or a drum, and the men were feeling it keenly.
So the rough chorus struck him pleasantly, and he stopped to hear it out.
When the gun was up to their camp, the men cast loose and began to foot it merrily to the music, just to show what a trifle a Lancaster gun was to British sailormen. And Jim, as he sat laughing at their antics and enjoying them hugely, suddenly caught sight of a familiar face. Not one of the dancers, but one who stood looking on soberly--it might even he sombrely, Jim could not be sure.
He jumped off his horse and led him round.
"Why, Seth, old man!" he said, clapping the broad shoulder in friendly delight. "What brings you here?"
And young Seth turned and faced him, and had to look twice before he knew him.
"Ech--why, it's Mester Jim!" he said slowly.
"Of course it is. And but for you he wouldn't be here, and he never forgets it. But how do you come to be here, Seth?"
"I come with the rest to fight the Roosians, Mester Jim."
"I wish they'd give us a chance, but it's going to be all long bowls, I'm afraid."