Part 5 (1/2)
”I doubt if that will do. You see,” said Captain Pond, lifting his voice for the benefit of the Die-hards, who by this time were quite as sorely puzzled as their prisoner, ”we are about to bury one of our Company, Sergeant Fugler--”
”Ah! he is dead?”
”He is dying,” Captain Pond pursued, the more quickly since he now guessed, not without reason, that Fugler was the ”good Cornishman” to whose door M. Trinquier had been directed. ”He is dying of a hobnailed liver. It is his wish to have the Dead March played at his burying.”
”He whistled the tune over to me,” said the Doctor; ”but plague take me if I can whistle it to you. I've no ear: but I'd know it again if I heard it. Dismal isn't the word for it.”
”It will be Handel. I am sure it will be Handel--the Dead March in his _Saul_.”
”In his what?”
”In his oratorio of _Saul_. Listen--_poum, poum, prrr, poum_--”
”Be dashed, but you've got it!” cried the Doctor, delighted; ”though you do give it a sort of foreign accent. But I daresay that won't be so noticeable on the key-bugle.”
”But about this key-bugle, monsieur? And the other instruments?--not to mention the players.”
”I've been thinking of that,” said Captain Pond. ”There's Butcher Tregaskis has a key-bugle. He plays 'Rule Britannia' upon it when he goes round with the suet. He'll lend you that till we can get one down from Plymouth. A drum, too, you shall have. Hockaday's trader calls here to-morrow on her way to Plymouth; she shall bring both instruments back with her. Then we have the church musicians--Peter Tweedy, first fiddle; Matthew John Ede, second ditto; Thomas Tripconey, scorpion--”
”Serpent,” the Doctor corrected.
”Well, it's a filthy thing to look at, anyway. Israel Spettigew, ba.s.s-viol; William Henry Phippin, flute; and William Henry Phippin's eldest boy Archelaus to tap the triangle at the right moment.
That boy, sir, will play the triangle almost as well as a man grown.”
”Then, monsieur, take me to your house. Give me a little food and drink, pen, ink, and paper, and in three hours you shall have _la part.i.tion_.”
Said the Doctor, ”That's all very well, Pond, but the church musicianers can't march with their music, as you told me just now.”
”I've thought of that, too. We'll have Miller Penrose's covered three-horse waggon to march ahead of the coffin. Hang it in black and go slow, and all the musicianers can sit around inside and play away as merry as grigs.”
”The cover'll give the music a sort of m.u.f.fly sound; but that,”
Lieutenant Clogg suggested, ”will be all the more fitty for a funeral.”
”So it will, Clogg; so it will. But we're wasting time. I suppose you won't object, sir, to be marched down to my house by the Company?
It's the regular thing in case of taking a prisoner, and you'll be left to yourself as soon as you get to my door.”
”Not at all,” said M. Trinquier amiably.
”Then, gentlemen, fall in! The practice is put off. And when you get home, mind you change your stockings, all of you. We're in luck's way this morning, but that's no reason for recklessness.”
So M. Trinquier, sometime Director of Periodical Festivities to the Munic.i.p.ality of Dieppe, was marched down into East Looe, to the wonder and delight of the inhabitants, who had just recovered from the shock of Gunner Spettigew's false alarm, and were in a condition to be pleased with trifles. As the Company tramped along the street, Captain Pond pointed out the Town Hall to his prisoner.
”That will be the most convenient place to hold your practices.
And that is Fugler's house, just opposite.”
”But we cannot practise without making a noise.”
”I hope not, indeed. Didn't I promise you a big drum?”
”But in that case the sick man will hear. It will disturb his last moments.”
”Confound the fellow, he can't have everything! If he'd asked for peace and quiet, he should have had it. But he didn't: he asked for a Dead March. Don't trouble about Fugler. He's not an unreasonable man. The only question is, if the Doctor here can keep him going until you're perfect with the tune.”