‘I’ve got in a row,’ says ’e; ’I knocked a man down and he’s dead.  Oh, for God’s sake, hide me!  I’ve run all the way from Chatham.’

Then my old man, he steps out on the deck, and Jarvis, ’e see who it was, and—­’O my God!’ says ’e, and ’e almost fell back in the water in ’is fright.

Then my old man, ’e took that soldier by the arm, and ’e open the door of the little cabin where my Pretty and ’er baby were.  Then ’e slammed it to again.  ‘No, I can’t,’ says ’e, ‘by God, I can’t.’  And before the soldier could speak, he’d dragged him down our cabin stairs, and shoved ’im into ’is own bunk and chucked the covers over ’im.  Then ‘e come up to where I was standin’ in the moonlight.

‘What ever you done that for?’ says I.  ’Why not ’a give ’im up to serve ’im out for what ‘e done to our Pretty?’

He looked at me stupid-like.  ‘I don’t know why,’ says ’e, ’but I can’t’; and we stood there in the quiet night, me a-holding on to ’is arm, for I was shivering, so I could hardly stand.

And presently half a dozen soldiers come by with a sergeant.

‘Hullo!’ cries the sergeant, ‘see any redcoat go this way?’

‘He’s gone up over the bridge,’ says Tom, not turnin’ a ’air, ’im that I’d never ’eard tell a lie in his life before,—­’You’ll catch ’im if you look slippy; what’s ‘e done?’

‘Only murder and desertion,’ says the sergeant, as cheerful as you please.

‘Oh, is that all?’ says my old man; ‘good-night to you.’

‘Good-night,’ says the sergeant, and off they went.

They didn’t come back our way.  We was a-goin’ down stream, and we passed Chatham next mornin’.

Bill Jarvis, ’e lay close in the bunk, and my Pretty, she wouldn’t come out of ’er cabin; and at Chatham, my old man, ’e says, ’I’m goin’ ashore for a bit, old woman; you lay-to and wait for me.’  And he went.

Then I went in to my Pretty and I told her all about it, for she knew nothin’ but that Jarvis was aboard; and when I’d told ’er, she said, ’I couldn’t ‘a’ done it, no, not for a kingdom.’

‘No more couldn’t I,’ ses I.  ’Father’s a better chap nor you and me, my Pretty.’

Presently my old man come back from the town, and he goes down to the bunk where Bill Jarvis is lying, and ’e says, ’Look ‘ere, Bill,’ says ’e, ’you didn’t kill your man last night, and after all, it was in a fair rough-and-tumble.  The man’s doing well.  You take my tip and go back and give yourself up; they won’t be ‘ard on you.’

And Bill ’e looked at ’im all of a tremble.  ‘By God,’ says ’e, ‘you’re a good man!’

‘It’s more than you are, then, you devil,’ says Tom.  ’Get along, out of my sight,’ says ’e, ‘before I think better of it.’

And that soldier was off that barge before you could say ‘knife,’ and we didn’t see no more of ’im.

But we was up at Hamsted Lock the next summer.  The baby was beginnin’ to toddle about now; we’d called her Bessie for me.  She and her mother was a-settin’ in the meadow pickin’ the daisies, when I see a soldier a-comin’ along the meadow-path, and if it wasn’t that Bill Jarvis again.  He stopped short when he saw my Pretty.