his duty.  He was summoned to join his regiment from a town where he had been on the recruiting service, and this perhaps under some shade of suspicion.  Matcham perceived discovery was at hand, and would have deserted had it not been for the presence of a little drummer lad, who was the only one of his party appointed to attend him.  In the desperation of his crime he resolved to murder the poor boy, and avail himself of some balance of money to make his escape.  He meditated this wickedness the more readily that the drummer, he thought, had been put as a spy on him.  He perpetrated his crime, and changing his dress after the deed was done, made a long walk across the country to an inn on the Portsmouth road, where he halted and went to bed, desiring to be called when the first Portsmouth coach came.  The waiter summoned him accordingly, but long after remembered that, when he shook the guest by the shoulder, his first words as he awoke were:  “My God!  I did not kill him.”

Matcham went to the seaport by the coach, and instantly entered as an able-bodied landsman or marine, I know not which.  His sobriety and attention to duty gained him the same good opinion of the officers in his new service which he had enjoyed in the army.  He was afloat for several years, and behaved remarkably well in some actions.  At length the vessel came into Plymouth, was paid off, and some of the crew, amongst whom was Jarvis Matcham, were dismissed as too old for service.  He and another seaman resolved to walk to town, and took the route by Salisbury.  It was when within two or three miles of this celebrated city that they were overtaken by a tempest so sudden, and accompanied with such vivid lightning and thunder so dreadfully loud, that the obdurate conscience of the old sinner began to be awakened.  He expressed more terror than seemed natural for one who was familiar with the war of elements, and began to look and talk so wildly that his companion became aware that something more than usual was the matter.  At length Matcham complained to his companion that the stones rose from the road and flew after him.  He desired the man to walk on the other side of the highway to see if they would follow him when he was alone.  The sailor complied, and Jarvis Matcham complained that the stones still flew after him and did not pursue the other.  “But what is worse,” he added, coming up to his companion, and whispering, with a tone of mystery and fear, “who is that little drummer-boy, and what business has he to follow us so closely?” “I can see no one,” answered the seaman, infected by the superstition of his associate.  “What! not see that little boy with the bloody pantaloons!” exclaimed the secret murderer, so much to the terror of his comrade that he conjured him, if he had anything on his mind, to make a clear conscience as far as confession could do it.  The criminal fetched a deep groan, and declared that he was unable longer to endure the life which he had