guardian or their gaoler whistle this tune ere
this, and that they know that a great war is
afoot, and that thousands of brave soldiers
have left home, followed by the smiles and
tears, the hopes and fears, and tender wishes
of thousands more, to the tune of the "Girl
I left behind me."

Hear it on the bridge. It is six o'clock
in the morning, and the white-aproned
collector of the Bridge Company's revenues is
peacefully taking the coppers from newspaper
compositors going home. The sleepy night cabs
crawling to their Kennington yards; the
gloved and belted policeman; the twinkling
gas-lamps; the moored barges on the river;
the utter quietude and stilliness of the giant
city, sleeping too heavily even to snore;
save now and then snoring, droningly, in the
wheels of the lumbering market-carts; the
labourer going to his work; the coffee-stall
keeper retiring (till to-morrow night) from
business; the placards covering the hoardings
outside the bridge gates—placards of quiet,
harmless, pacific entertainments—"carpet
bags," "ascents" of mountains, "songs and
sayings," and the like—the very morning moon,
and first grey whisper of dawn, all seem to
denote peace, tranquillity, security. There is
nothing more warlike about the bridge than its
name, and perhaps a notification on the
outlying hoarding of the forthcoming "benefit"
of some favourite prize-fighter.

Hear it on the bridge: "The Girl I left
behind me," played in all the brass clangour
of the military band, as the footguards march
by. Suddenly—and yet, oh so softly—you
heard its first notes to westward borne faintly,
and yet faithfully, on the morning air. The
carriage-gates of the bridge a moment before
were closed, as it is befitting the gates of the
temple of Janus should be closed in time of
peace; in an instant they are opened wide—
when, O Future, to be closed again?

Hear it on the bridge, the measured tramp
of these armed scarlet men—the famous
Guards of the Queen of England. Proud and
magnificent in scarlet and gold is the
bandmaster, conscious in his whiskers of glorious
experiences—of campaigns in the Queen's
antechamber during the time of dinner, of
brilliant sorties at the Horticultural Fêtes, of
dashing charges at the balls and suppers of
the Peerage. Secure are you too, O
Bandmaster in your scarlet and gold! No
Kalafatian trenches yawn for you; no Russian
bayonets thirst for your melodious blood; for
you and your brave bandsmen do not go
abroad. Not but what you would fight, and
fight like a very "Pandarus of Troy" were you
called upon so to do. But fate has ordered it
otherwise. You and your embroidered hosts of
Orpheonists have the good luck or ill luck to be
simply ornamental appendages to the regiment,
and imbursed by a subscription among
the officers thereof. Sambo, or Muley
Mahomed, or whatever may be his name—
the glorious being of the dark complexion,
with the turban and the bullion and the
crimson cloth garments—his habiliments
are not to be stained with the darker,
duller crimson of blood. Ye are to remain at
home, O ye warriors of the wind instruments
—you play the "Girl I left behind me," but
your country wills that you shall remain
behind to be the comfort and solace of those
said girls—to be the ornament of St. James's
Palace-yard and the delight of the dinner-
table. They are fierce men to look at, these
bandsmen, but mild as sucking doves in
reality. I have known a bandsman
personally, I, Scriblerus; and the modest and
unassuming manner in which he would eat
bread and cheese and drink mild porter in
Popkins's little parlour, opposite the Theatre
Royal Lincoln's Inn Fields, was positively
charming. No pride about him: none of the
licence of the camp, the brutality of the
barrack room, and the brusquerie of the
bivouac. I have seen him in his gorgeous
regimentals, with his big fierce muff cap
under a three-legged stool, sit meekly in the
dark corner of a dark orchestra during
rehearsal, and pipe forth plaintive notes for a
young lady in a very short and shabby muslin
skirt, with a plaid scarf crossed over her chest;
notes known in ballet parlance as a
"practising dress," to dance to. I have heard him
taken to task, ay and smartly too, concerning
his time or tune by the orchestral conductor
—a mere foreigner in a beard. I have seen him
sit placidly behind his instrument at fashionable
morning concerts, when Signors and Senors
and Herrs have been inflicting atrocious cruelties
upon unresisting pianos, and never dare
to stir a finger in their defence. I have known
him when off duty lend his valuable aid to
polka parties, sup on Welsh rabbits afterwards,
and go home to Camberwell in a worsted
comforter and American overshoes.

Very different is the fate of these other
musicians who come after the glittering band,
and alternately with them take up in a ruder,
sterner strain the notes of the "Girl I left
behind me." Hear the drummers and fifers,
from the stern man pounding away at the big
drum as though it were a Russian, to the
wee little fifer-boy half swallowed up by his
leathern stock, half extinguished by his huge
bearskin. No scarlet and gold here, but
coarse red and worsted lace, and plenty of it.
The bridle is for the ass, and the rod for the
fool's back, and the drummer is for the battles.
These mere children, these parvi parvulorum,
may be spared—but, drummer of the strong
arm and adult age, to the complexion of
Kalafat you must come. And in the din of
the battle, amid the thundering cannons,
and the roaring muskets, and the cracking
rifles, your drums are to be heard and are
to answer back the pibroch of the
Highlander and the bugles of the Rifles; though
you cannot drown—would you could, would
you could!—the groans of the wounded and
the dying.