The Drummers Coat | Page 2

Ashacombe it is to see not the village but the Hall, for Bracefort Hall has some fame of its own. It is a beautiful little house, built in the time of King Henry the Sixth, and therefore in the shape of an H, with two gables marking the end of the downstrokes, and a short length of grey roof standing for the cross-bar. It faces to the south, so that the little court between the gables is a veritable sun-trap, wherein grow magnolia and jessamine; while roses, Dutch honeysuckle, clematis and wistaria cover the whole front of the house and almost hide the mullioned windows. But the Hall is even more attractive within than without, for from the moment when you enter the door you find yourself among oak panels, oak carving and old tapestry on every side and in every room. The house has but two storeys, so that the rooms are not very large not very high, with the exception of the hall, which fills both storeys of the cross-bar of the H, from the floor to the roof. The ceiling is of open work, beautifully carved; the walls are panelled high, and at the head of each panel is painted a coat of arms showing the marriages of many generations of Braceforts. Above the panels at one end of the hall are huge coats of arms carved in stone and gorgeously coloured; and at the other end is a gallery of carved oak with the gilded pipes of an organ shining above it. A great part of the outer wall is taken up by a very large mullioned window with quaint round panes, many of them filled with old stained glass; and on the wall opposite to it is a great fireplace of carved stone, the centre of it showing the crest of a mailed arm and the motto, Dieu et bras fort.
Above this fireplace hang some curious things--stags' horns, and weapons of bygone times, and among them a buff coat, an iron helmet, a cuirass, and two long straight swords, which evidently belonged to one of the gentlemen with flowing love-locks and broad collars turned down over their mail, whose portraits are hung on each side. But below these is a more modern helmet, such a helmet as was worn by Light Dragoons about a century ago, of lacquered leather with a huge comb of fur, a scarlet turban wound about it, and a short plume of red and white. Also there is a curved sword with a crimson sash draped round it; and below these again, neatly spread in a glass case, is a quaint little child's coat of yellow, with red collar, cuffs and lapels, two tiny red wings at the shoulders and two tiny red tails behind; which garment an inscription, now much faded, declares to be a drummer's coat of the time of the Peninsular War.
Now it is easy to guess to whom the Light Dragoon's helmet and sword and sash belonged, for immediately on one side of it is a portrait of a very handsome man with dark hair and eyes, dressed in a blue coat with silver braid, with the crimson sash round his waist, the curved sword at his side, and the identical helmet under his arm; and you may read underneath the picture that it represents Captain Richard Bracefort, who was killed at the battle of Salamanca. Close by, too, is a picture of his charger, Billy Pitt, which he rode in the battle, and which lived, as is written on the picture, for many years afterwards. Again, as a pendant to the Captain's picture hangs a portrait of a lady, showing a beautiful oval face with three chestnut curls on each side of it and a mass of chestnut hair above, and two blue eyes as clear and as pure as a child's; and underneath this portrait is written the name of Lady Eleanor Bracefort, wife and widow of Captain Richard the Light Dragoon.
But how the drummer's coat ever found its way into Bracefort Hall there is nothing to show. Nevertheless by that little coat there hangs a tale; and though that tale is now nearly eighty years old, both the Hall and the village are so little changed that it is perhaps worth the telling.
CHAPTER II
It was the 22nd of July 1820, and the shadows were beginning to lengthen over Ashacombe village on a burning summer's afternoon. The men were still at work, and most of the women also; for, early though it was, a farmer was cutting a field of wheat over the hill on the far side of the valley, a field which was always the first in the whole parish to ripen. So the men were cutting and the women were binding, for