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.
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