"Dragooners!" shouts my father; and then, running to the side of the
tower facing the harvest-field, he put both hands to his mouth and
called:

"_What have 'ee? What have 'ee?_"--very loud and long.

"_A neck--a neck!_" came back from the field, like as if all shouted at
once--dear, the sweet sound! And then a gun was fired, and craning
forward over the coping I saw a dozen men running across the stubble and
out into the road towards the Hauen; and they called as they ran, "_A
neck--a neck!_"

"Iss," says my father, "'tis a neck, sure 'nuff. Pray God they save en!
Come, sonny--"

But we dallied up there till the horsemen were plain to see, and their
scarlet coats and armour blazing in the dust as they came. And when
they drew near within a mile, and our limbs ached with crouching--for
fear they should spy us against the sky--father took me by the hand and
pulled hot foot down the stairs. Before they rode by he had picked up
his shovel and was shovelling out a grave for his life.

Forty valiant horsemen they were, riding two-and-two (by reason of the
narrowness of the road) and a captain beside them--men broad and long,
with hairy top-lips, and all clad in scarlet jackets and white breeches
that showed bravely against their black war-horses and jet-black
holsters, thick as they were wi' dust. Each man had a golden helmet,
and a scabbard flapping by his side, and a piece of metal like a
half-moon jingling from his horse's cheek-strap. 12 D was the numbering
on every saddle, meaning the Twelfth Dragoons.