You won't get no credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on
a set of fools. But if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon
a holy word that no one but me shall know, and neither drummer nor
trumpeter, dead nor alive, shall frighten the secret out of me.'

"'I wish to gracious you would, parson,' said my father.

"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock
back upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place.
He is gone long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock
is broken by force, nobody will ever separate those twain."



THE LOOE DIE-HARDS.


Captain Pond, of the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery
(familiarly known as the Looe Die-hards), put his air-cushion to his
lips and blew. This gave his face a very choleric and martial
expression.

Nevertheless, above his suffused and distended cheeks his eyes
preserved a pensive melancholy as they dwelt upon his Die-hards
gathered in the rain below him on the long-shore, or Church-end,
wall. At this date (November 3, 1809) the company numbered seventy,
besides Captain Pond and his two subalterns; and of this force four
were out in the boat just now, mooring the practice-mark--a barrel
with a small red flag stuck on top; one, the bugler, had been sent up
the hill to the nine-pounder battery, to watch and sound a call as