The Dead Drummer : a Legend of Salisbury Plain. 219 



The Dead Drummer : 

 A Legend of Salisbury Plain. 

 By Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq.* 



Oh ! Salisbury Plain is bleak and bare ; 

 At least, so I've heard many people declare, 

 For I fairly confess I never was there. 



Not a shrub nor a tree, 



Nor a bush can you see ; 

 No hedges, no ditches, no gates, no stiles, 

 Much less a cottage or house for miles. 

 It's a very sad thing to be caught in the rain 

 When night's coming on upon Salisbury Plain. 



Now I'd have you to know, 



That a great while ago, 

 The best part of a century, may be, or so, 

 Across the same Plain so dull and so dreary 

 A couple of travellers wayworn and weary 



Were making their way. 



Their profession, you'd say 

 At a single glance did not admit of a query. 



The pump-handled pigtail and whiskers worn then 

 With scarce an exception by seafaring men ; 

 The jacket, the loose trowsers "bows'd up" together — all 

 Guiltless of braces as those of Charles Wetherall; 

 The pigeon-toed step and the rollicking motion 

 Bespake them two genuine sons of the ocean ; 

 And showed in a moment their real characters. 

 (The accent's so placed on this word by our Jack Tars.) 



The one in advance was sturdy and strong, 

 With arms uncommonly bony and long ; 



And his Guernsey shirt 



Was all pitch and dirt, 

 Which sailors don't think inconveuieut or wrong. 



He was very broad-breasted 



And very deep-chested; 

 His sinewy frame correspond with the rest did : 

 Except as to height, for he could not be more 

 At the most, you would say, than some five feet four, 

 And if measured, porhaps had been found a thought lower. 



The other, his friend and companion, was taller 

 By five or six inclu s, at bust, than the smaller. 



From hi* air and his mil n 



It whs plain lo be seen 



• The lata Bar. Blohard Barium 



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