"After that, she and I was a good bit together, she carrying her dollars and I carrying the boy; but the way grew worse and worse, and but for the boy I think that I should have gived out myself as so many did. Once I remember I saw a sojer and his wife a-lying down by the wayside; they couldn't go no farther and had lain down to die together; and I wished that it had been Jan and me; but I had the boy on my back and I went on. Well, I won't tell you what terrible sights we saw on the road; but I'll tell 'ee this, that I have seen grown men a-sobbing like children for pain and cold and hunger. It was enough to turn the head of a grown man, let alone a child. And so it was that after a time the boy stopped crying and complaining and went quite quiet. I couldn't think what was come to mun, that he was always a-staring and never speaking nor taking no notice; but I reckoned that if I could carry mun on to the end, he would recover hisself. And I did carry mun on to the end to—what was the name of the place again?—something like currants it was."
"Corunna?" said Colonel George.
"Ay, that was it, Corinner—but when we got there, there wasn't no ships, and General Moore had to fight the French and bate mun before he could sail home. And he was a-killed, poor gentleman, he was, as you know, and many other brave men besides. But we and the sick and the wounded was put aboard before the battle was fought, and a strange thing there was that happened. The woman that had taken the dollars come aboard with me, but her hands were so full that she gave me a part of the money to hold, while she climbed from the boat to the ship's side. And as she stepped on the ladder, her foot slipped, and she fell into the sea and sank like a stone; for she had dollars sewn up in her clothes so heavy, that down she went and never come up again. So there was I left with what she give me, and as her husband was killed in the battle and there wasn't no one else belonging to her to take the money, I reckoned I might keep it. And then one day I thought of what the old Betsy had said, that I should cross the sea and bring back gold, though it wasn't gold, but silver.
"Well, on board ship the boy didn't change, though he got a bit stronger in his body. We had a terrible storm on the way home, and for all I could do I couldn't keep mun from being knocked about; the ship rolling and plunging so that the men could hardly save themselves. And when we got home and was set ashore on the beach, I could see that my boy wasn't the only one that was gone wrong. I tell 'ee, my Lady, that some men was even blind with the toil of that march, and hunger and cold and misery.
"So there I was alone with my boy, for hardly a man of Jan's company was left and not many of the whole ridgment, while what there was of them was mostly sick. 'Twas lucky that I had money, or I can't think what I should have done. But the worst was that my boy remained just the same as he was. I showed mun to the doctors, and they took blood from mun once and wanted to take more, but I wouldn't have that, for I'd a-seen what they was with their lancets if they was let alone; and at last they telled me that his mind was gone and wouldn't never come back. But he grew stronger in his body after a bit, and I was able to take mun abroad; and though he liked the sound of the drums he was a bit frightened at the sight of a red coat, for fear that it should be a sarjint, and if it was a sarjint he would run like a rabbit. So I was obliged to move away as soon as I could; but go where I would there was no peace, for he'd a-lost his speech except some few sounds, and I couldn't let mun run with other children, for they always make sport of such poor things as he. So for a long time we wandered from place to place, getting little but hard words, though the boy was happy enough, I believe; for living in the air as we did he took up with every bird and every beast that he could find, and they seem to know mun for a friend. Many was the young one that he took and made so tame as could be.
"Then at last the money began to run short, for all that I was careful, and that now and again we could earn a little bit; so I minded what old Betsy Lavacombe had said, and thought I would go back and find she. It was a long way to go, but we walked on day after day till we got nigh to the moor, when I chose my road very careful and walked night-times only till we come to this house. The old Betsy was agone, and the house was nigh failed to pieces, and I've a-heard since that she was found drowned in a lime-pit some years back. But I digged under the table as the old Betsy had said, and there deep down was a box wrapped up in a sheepskin, full of silver money, and a little gold too. How she got it, I can't tell, unless she took it from her husband, who had been a sailor, as she told me once, though sailors isn't given to saving. So we built up the house again and here I made up my mind to live, where no one couldn't hurt my boy, for he was shy of grown-up folks, and children won't leave mun alone.
"So here we've a-been now these many years, and the boy's been so happy as could be. Jackdaws, hedgehogs, squirrels, deer, naught comes amiss to mun: and he knows the moor and the woods so well as the deer themselves. He growed stronger too, though I wouldn't never take him with me when I went down to the villages to buy meal: but he would always keep out of sight and wait for me. And I suppose that just lately he may have been getting a bit better in his head, for he runned down to join the children that day when I come to Ashacombe, as you remember; and for all that he was a bit frightened then, he was so took up with your little lady that I hadn't the heart to keep mun from going to look at her, though I was always hid not very far from mun. It was me that your servant saw in the woods the day Jan brought the bullfinch; but Lord, Lord, I never thought that it would have come to this."
She stopped, and pulling the clothes aside looked sadly at the sick man's face. "See there," she said in a hard, changed voice, "that's how he looked often when we was marching back to Corinner. I thought that I should never get mun back alive then, but I did hope never to see mun look so again. And though he can't spake I know what he's a-thinking. He thinks that the sarjint's come for mun, and it's a killed the heart within mun."