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He tried to reach, but the scaffold was too high, so he tossed up what was in his hand, and the woman caught it–a little screw of tissue-paper.

“I must see that, please!” said the sheriff, laying a hand upon her arm.

“‘Tis but a weddin’-ring, sir”–and she slipped it over her finger. Then she kissed it once, under the beam, and, lookin’ into the dragoon’s eyes, spoke very slow–

“Husband, our child shall go wi’ you; an’ when I want you he shall fetch you.”

–and with that turned to the sheriff, saying:

“I be ready, sir.”

The sheriff wouldn’t give father and mother leave for me to touch the dead woman’s hand; so they drove back that evening grumbling a good bit. ‘Tis a sixteen-mile drive, and the ostler in at Bodmin had swindled the poor old horse out of his feed, I believe; for he crawled like a slug. But they were so taken up with discussing the day’s doings, and what a mort of people had been present, and how the sheriff might have used milder language in refusing my father, that they forgot to use the whip. The moon was up before we got halfway home, and a star to be seen here and there; and still we never mended our pace.

‘Twas in the middle of the lane leading down to Hendra Bottom, where for more than a mile two carts can’t pass each other, that my father pricks up his ears and looks back.

“Hullo!” says he; “there’s somebody gallopin’ behind us.”

Far back in the night we heard the noise of a horse’s hoofs, pounding furiously on the road and drawing nearer and nearer.

“Save us!” cries father; “whoever ’tis, he’s comin’ down th’ lane!” And in a minute’s time the clatter was close on us and someone shouting behind.

“Hurry that crawlin’ worm o’ yourn–or draw aside in God’s name, an’ let me by!” the rider yelled.

“What’s up?” asked my father, quartering as well as he could. “Why! Hullo! Farmer Hugo, be that you?”

“There’s a mad devil o’ a man behind, ridin’ down all he comes across. A’s blazin’ drunk, I reckon–but ’tisn’ that–’tis the horrible voice that goes wi’ en–Hark! Lord protect us, he’s turn’d into the lane!”

Sure enough, the clatter of a second horse was coming down upon us, out of the night–and with it the most ghastly sounds that ever creamed a man’s flesh. Farmer Hugo pushed past us and sent a shower of mud in our faces as his horse leapt off again, and ‘way-to-go down the hill. My father stood up and lashed our old grey with the reins, and down we went too, bumpity-bump for our lives, the poor beast being taken suddenly like one possessed. For the screaming behind was like nothing on earth but the wailing and sobbing of a little child–only tenfold louder. ‘Twas just as you’d fancy a baby might wail if his little limbs was being twisted to death.

At the hill’s foot, as you know, a stream crosses the lane–that widens out there a bit, and narrows again as it goes up t’other side of the valley. Knowing we must be overtaken further on–for the screams and clatter seemed at our very backs by this–father jumped out here into the stream and backed the cart well to one side; and not a second too soon.

The next moment, like a wind, this thing went by us in the moonlight– a man upon a black horse that splashed the stream all over us as he dashed through it and up the hill. ‘Twas the scarlet dragoon with his ashen face; and behind him, holding to his cross-belt, rode a little shape that tugged and wailed and raved. As I stand here, sir, ’twas the shape of a naked babe!

Well, I won’t go on to tell how my father dropped upon his knees in the water, or how my mother fainted off. The thing was gone, and from that moment for eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket. The fright killed my mother. Before next spring she fell into a decline, and early next fall the old man–for he was an old man now–had to delve her grave. After this he went feebly about his work, but held on, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do as soon as I was fourteen, having outgrown the rickets by that time.