For she saw the glint in the farmer's eye; and so Sergeant Basket slept
bolt upright that night in an arm-chair by the parlour fender. Next day
the dragooners searched the town again, and were billeted all about
among the cottages. But the sergeant returned to Constantine, and
before going to bed--this time in the spare room--played a game of
cribbage with Madam Noy, the farmer smoking sulkily in his arm-chair.

"Two for his heels!" said the rosy woman suddenly, halfway through the
game. "Sergeant, you're cheatin' yoursel' an' forgettin' to mark.
Gi'e me the board; I'll mark for both."

She put out her hand upon the board, and Sergeant Basket's closed upon
it. 'Tis true he had forgot to mark; and feeling the hot pulse in her
wrist, and beholding the hunger in her eyes, 'tis to be supposed he'd
have forgot his own soul.

He rode away next day with his troop: but my uncle Philip not being
caught yet, and the Government set on making an example of him, we
hadn't seen the last of these dragoons. 'Twas a time of fear down in
the town. At dead of night or at noonday they came on us--six times in
all: and for two months the crew of the _Unity_ couldn't call their
souls their own, but lived from day to day in secret closets and
wandered the country by night, hiding in hedges and straw-houses.
All that time the revenue men watched the Hauen, night and day, like
dogs before a rat-hole.

But one November morning 'twas whispered abroad that Uncle Philip had
made his way to Falmouth, and slipped across to Guernsey. Time passed
on, and the dragooners were seen no more, nor the handsome