Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: "Hold mun fast, brave lads!"] The Drummer's Coat by the Hon. J. W. Fortescue Author of "The Story of a Red Deer" With illustrations by H. M. Brock London MacMillan and Co., Limited New York: The MacMillan Company 1899 _All rights reserved_ RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BUNGAY. First Edition, November 1899. Reprinted, December 1899. TO D. W. PREFATORY NOTE Lest a principal incident in this little tale should seem incredible, it may be mentioned that an instance of a child being deprived of speech for several days, at the bidding of a reputed witch, came under the author's immediate notice less than three years ago, in a village but three miles distant from his own home. It may be added that the military details in Chapter XIII. are all drawn from authentic sources, mainly from the _Recollections of Rifleman Harris_ and the _History of the Fifty-Second Regiment_. CASTLE HILL, 28th August, 1899. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "HOLD MUN FAST, BRAVE LADS!" . . . _Frontispiece_ BENT DOWN TO KISS ELSIE'S AS HE HAD KISSED HER MOTHER'S "THE BIRD BEGAN TO PIPE A LITTLE TUNE" "STILL THE WOMAN LED THEM ON" THE DRUMMER'S COAT CHAPTER I In a deep wooded valley in the north of Devon stands the village of Ashacombe. It is but a little village, of some twenty or thirty cottages with white cob walls and low thatched roofs, running along the sunny side of the valley for a little way, and then curving downward across it to a little bridge of two tiny pointed arches, on the other side of which stands a mill with a water-wheel. For a little stream runs down this valley as down all Devonshire valleys; and as you look up the water from the bridge you can see it winding and sparkling through its margin of meadow, while the great oak woods hang still and solemn above it, till some bold green headland slopes down and shuts it from your sight; and you raise your eyes, and count fresh headlands crossing each other right and left beyond it, fainter and fainter, till at last they end in a little patch of purple heather, which seems to be the end of all things. But when you look down the water, you find that the woods no longer cover the sunny side of the valley so thickly, but that there is open ground like a park. There is a gate by the bridge opening on to a narrow road, which presently ends in two great spreading yews; and through these you can see a lych-gate, and beyond it a little grey church with a low grey tower. Close to this gate is a lodge of grey stone, with a winding drive which guides your eye through the trees to the gables of a house of the same grey stone, which peer up over the trees on the ground above the church. Then beyond it the headlands of green wood begin to cross each other again, lower and lower, till you can follow them no more.