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The strain of carrying him all that distance from Bracefort must have been more than she could really stand. She has no one except him in the world, and if he be taken from her, I cannot think how she will struggle on alone." "Yes," said Lady Eleanor, as if talking to herself, "it is terrible to be left alone."

The little cornet was shot dead, the troop-sergeant-major drowned while crossing a treacherous ford, this trooper maimed for life, that trooper but she could not bear to think of it. And then came the morning in August when old Mr. Bracefort had come in white and trembling to break to her the news of Salamanca.

The goats, the old pony, the magpie, the jackdaw and the squirrel were all brought down at the same time and made over to Elsie; and the little drummer's coat still lies in the glass case at Bracefort Hall. But it was all many, many years ago; and there are few now living in Ashacombe village who remember to have heard from their parents the story of the witch of Cossacombe.

But how the drummer's coat ever found its way into Bracefort Hall there is nothing to show. Nevertheless by that little coat there hangs a tale; and though that tale is now nearly eighty years old, both the Hall and the village are so little changed that it is perhaps worth the telling.

Then he set the door in its place and rode straight for Bracefort. When he reached the hill-top he saw some one riding upward; and galloping down soon found himself face to face with Lady Eleanor.

Now it is easy to guess to whom the Light Dragoon's helmet and sword and sash belonged, for immediately on one side of it is a portrait of a very handsome man with dark hair and eyes, dressed in a blue coat with silver braid, with the crimson sash round his waist, the curved sword at his side, and the identical helmet under his arm; and you may read underneath the picture that it represents Captain Richard Bracefort, who was killed at the battle of Salamanca.

A great meal they ate, the Corporal attacking his potato-cake and cream as heartily as Dick himself; and when all the old stories had been related for the fiftieth time, old Sally produced the greatest treasure that she owned, a little snuff-box mounted in silver, which had been made from the horn of an ox that had been roasted whole at the great election, when old Squire Bracefort had stood at the head of the poll.

The colonel laid his hand on the man's forehead; and it was quite cold. Then he took the woman's hand and that also was cold. He had seen such sights too often in the wars to be dismayed at finding himself alone with the dead. "He must have died at sunset," he said to himself, "and she walked over to Bracefort in the night in distraction and came back to die before sunrise.

Those again who read an inscription to the memory of General Sir Richard Bracefort, Colonel of the 116th Lancers, who fought in the Punjaub, cannot tell that this was once little Dick, who was lost on the moor, nor that Elizabeth his widowed sister, whose memory also is preserved in Ashacombe church, was once little Elsie who was lost with him.

So they rode on without a word for some way further till they came to two rough tracks, of which one led to Fitzdenys Court and the other to Bracefort, where Colonel George pulled up and looked at her straight in the face. "Is it go or stay?" he asked. "Go now," she said with some difficulty; "come back, not to-morrow, but when you return from visiting the hut on the day after."