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.
But one cool evening in September month, father was up digging in the yard alone: for 'twas a small child's grave, and in the loosest soil, and I was off on a day's work, thatching Farmer Tresidder's stacks.
He was digging away slowly when he heard a rattle at the lych-gate, and looking over the edge of the grave, saw in the dusk a man hitching his horse there by the bridle.
'Twas a coal-black horse, and the man wore a scarlet coat all powdered with pilm; and as he opened the gate and came over the graves, father saw that 'twas the dashing dragoon.

His face was still a slaty-grey, and clammy with sweat; and when he spoke, his voice was all of a whisper, with a shiver therein.
"Bedman," says he, "go to the hedge and look down the road, and tell me what you see." My father went, with his knees shaking, and came back again.
"I see a woman," says he, "not fifty yards down the road.