“Death!” says Noy.  “Doctor, I hain’t come for advice, for before this day week I’ll be a clay-cold corpse.  I come to ax a favour.  When they summon ye, before lookin’ at my body—­that’ll be past help—­go you to the little left-top corner drawer o’ my wife’s bureau, an’ there ye’ll find a packet.  You’re my executor,” says he, “and I leaves ye to deal wi’ that packet as ye thinks fit.”

With that, the farmer rode away home-along, and the very day week he went dead.

The doctor, when called over, minded what the old chap had said, and sending Madam Noy on some pretence to the kitchen, went over and unlocked the little drawer with a duplicate key, that the farmer had unhitched from his watch-chain and given him.  There was no parcel of letters, as he looked to find, but only a small packet crumpled away in the corner.  He pulled it out and gave a look, and a sniff, and another look:  then shut the drawer, locked it, strode straight down-stairs to his horse and galloped away.

In three hours’ time, pretty Madam Noy was in the constables’ hands upon the charge of murdering her husband by poison.

They tried her, next Spring Assize, at Bodmin, before the Lord Chief Justice.  There wasn’t evidence enough to put Sergeant Basket in the dock alongside of her—­though ’twas freely guessed he knew more than anyone (saving the prisoner herself) about the arsenic that was found in the little drawer and inside the old man’s body.  He was subpoena’d from Plymouth, and cross-examined by a great hulking King’s Counsel for three-quarters of an hour.  But they got nothing out of him.  All through the examination the prisoner looked at him and nodded her white face, every now and then, at his answers, as much as to say, “That’s right—­that’s right:  they shan’t harm thee, my dear.”  And the love-light shone in her eyes for all the court to see.  But the sergeant never let his look meet it.  When he stepped down at last she gave a sob of joy, and fainted bang-off.

They roused her up, after this, to hear the verdict of Guilty and her doom spoken by the judge.  “Pris’ner at the bar,” said the Clerk of Arraigns, “have ye anything to say why this court should not pass sentence o’ death?”

She held tight of the rail before her, and spoke out loud and clear—­

“My Lord and gentlemen all, I be a guilty woman; an’ I be ready to die at once for my sin.  But if ye kill me now, ye kill the child in my body—­an’ he is innocent.”

Well, ’twas found she spoke truth; and the hanging was put off till after the time of her delivery.  She was led back to prison, and there, about the end of June, her child was born, and died before he was six hours old.  But the mother recovered, and quietly abode the time of her hanging.

I can mind her execution very well; for father and mother had determined it would be an excellent thing for my rickets to take me into Bodmin that day, and get a touch of the dead woman’s hand, which in those times was considered an unfailing remedy.  So we borrowed the parson’s manure-cart, and cleaned it thoroughly, and drove in together.