The Drummer's Coat

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

"Well, they say that he can't speak," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "You shall tell him to speak yourself, and then we shall be able to judge."

So Mrs. Fry was called in and told to hold her tongue, and Tommy, who had hidden himself in her skirts, was brought forward. The woman no sooner saw him than her eyes gleamed, and she said: "That's the one who throwed stones at my boy and called mun thafe. He not spake? He can spake well enough if he has a mind, I'll warrant mun."

"But his mother says that he cannot," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "See for yourself," and he led the trembling boy forward. "Tell him to speak to you."

"Spake, boy," said the woman not very amiably. "You can spake well enough, can't 'ee?"

"Yas," said Tommy nervously, to his mother's intense surprise.

"There! what did I tell 'ee?" said the woman contemptuously. "'Twas only their lies. He can spake so well as you and I."

Mrs. Fry, much taken aback, seized hold of the boy in amazement; but he begged so hard to be let go as to leave no doubt that his speech was restored; and Lady Eleanor lost no time in sending him off with his mother.

Then Lady Eleanor again thanked the idiot's mother for all that she had done for her own children, and asked what she could do for her; but the woman would accept no money nor reward, nothing but a few cakes which the children brought to her to take home for her son. Lady Eleanor offered her everything that she could think of, even to a remote cottage in the woods where she would certainly live undisturbed; but the woman only begged that she might not be asked to say where she lived nor to give any account of herself. She was quite alone with her son, she said, and lived an honest harmless life. As to Tommy Fry, she could not understand how any words of hers could have taken his speech from him; it was nonsense, and the women were fools. Finally, she said that if Lady Eleanor really wished to be kind she would let them go and not try to find them again; but she faithfully promised that if anything went wrong, she would come to her first for help.

So Lady Eleanor seeing that she was in earnest promised to do as she had said; and the woman thanked her with real gratitude. Then Dick and Elsie came in again to say good-bye, and the woman, taking her son by the arm, led him away. He moved so feebly that Lady Eleanor offered her a pony for him to ride, but his mother refused, though with many thanks; so the two passed away slowly across the park, and disappeared.

"Well, there is Tommy Fry cured at any rate," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "And I believe that the woman spoke the truth, when she said that she did not know what she had done to him. And now I must see to this man who is locked up in the stable."