The Drummer's Coat

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

"My name's Mugford," gasped the man, now struggling a little.

"And when did you get your discharge?" asked the Corporal; "and why are you hanging about the woods instead of living with your mother like an honest man? But when you're back at Plymouth they'll know you as Henry Bale fast enough, I'll warrant."

The man trembled, and begged abjectly for mercy; but the Corporal only pulled out a knife, without relaxing his hold on his throat, turned him over on his face, and cut his waistband. "Now," he said, "the best thing that you can do is to surrender and come quietly along with me. Give me your hands." And pulling a piece of twine from his pocket he tied the man's thumbs together behind his back. Then raising him to his feet he shoved him over the rack in the hedge, and led him past Mrs. Mugford's windows, where a rushlight was burning, into the road and so to the stables at Bracefort. There he locked his prisoner into a separate loose-box with a barred window, having first tied his wrists before him, instead of his thumbs behind him; and then he sought out pen and paper and wrote; a letter to Colonel Fitzdenys, which, though it was not very long, took him much time to write, and ran as follows:—

"Honoured Col.—these are to inform you that I have the deserter Henry Bale saf under lock and kay which is all at present from your honour's most ob't humble serv't.—J. BRIMACOTT."

He put the letter into his pocket, and drawing a mattress before the door of the loose-box, went fast asleep on it till dawn, when he called a sleepy stable-boy from the rooms above and bade him ride over with the letter to Fitzdenys Court.

By eight o'clock Colonel Fitzdenys arrived at a gallop from Fitzdenys Court. Having seen and questioned the Corporal's prisoner, who made a full confession, he left a message that he would return as soon as possible, and that he would want to see Mrs. Fry and Tommy; after which he rode back again, as fast as he had come, to Kingstoke. There his business was soon finished, for when the idiot was brought up before him (which he had already arranged to be done) he was able to discharge him directly, since he himself had ascertained that the true deserter had been captured. But none the less he gave the serjeant a guinea to console him for his disappointment in having caught the wrong man.

Then he went to speak to the idiot's mother and to tell her how sorry he was for the mistake that had been made; for the two had been locked up all night in Kingstoke. She did not receive him kindly, however, for all that she said was: "It's very well to be sorry now, and I don't say, sir, that it's no fault of yours, but they've agone nigh to kill my boy with their doings;" and indeed the idiot was so weak and white that he could hardly stand. Still more distressed was she when Colonel Fitzdenys told her that she could not go yet, but that she must first visit Bracefort Hall. She tried hard to obtain his leave to go to her own place at once, but he insisted, though with all possible kindness, that she must come with him to the Hall, and that then she should be free to go where she would. So very reluctantly she got into a market-cart with her son, who sat like a lifeless thing beside her, and was driven off, while Colonel Fitzdenys cantered on before them.

When the market-cart reached the door of the Hall, Lady Eleanor was there waiting to welcome her and to thank her for all that she had done for her own children; but the woman only said coldly that she was very welcome, and seemed to have no thought but for her idiot son, who remained sunk in the same abject condition. They brought him wine, which revived him enough to set him crying a little, but he would take no notice of anything. For a moment the woman softened, when Dick and Elsie came in and thanked her prettily for the kindness that she had shown to them, and she tried to rouse her son to take notice of them. But he only went on crying; and she was evidently much distressed.

Then the Corporal came to say that Mrs. Fry was come and had brought Tommy with her; on which Colonel Fitzdenys told the woman outright that she had been accused of bewitching the boy and depriving him of his speech. The woman's hard manner at once returned, and she laughed loud and scornfully.

"That's only their lies," she said. "How should I take away a boy's speech? they'm all agin me and my boy; that's all it is."