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 inconvenient 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, perhaps had been found a thought lower. 



The other, his friend and companion, was taller 

 By five or six inches, at least, than the smaller. 



From his air and his mien 



It was plain to be seen 



* The late Rev. Richard Barham. 



o 2 



