"Mad, am I? P"raps so, but "twill be an ill madness for this coward."
He spurned the dragging body with his foot. "Ah, here"s Pascoe! Quick, you: swarm up the tree here, and take a hitch round that branch. See the one I mean?--the third up. Take your hitch by the knot yonder, but climb out first and see if it bears."
"What for?" demanded Pascoe stolidly.
"Oh, stifle you and your questions! Can"t you see what for?"
"Iss," Pascoe answered, "I reckon I see, and I ben"t goin" to do it."
"Look here,"--Roger drew a pistol from his pocket, "who"s master here--you or I?"
Malachi had run to the gate, and was dragging at the baulks of timber, shouting vain calls for help into the road. Jane had fled screaming through the house and out into the backyard. Pascoe alone kept his head.
It seemed to him that he heard the distant tramp of horses.
He looked up towards the bough.
""Tis a cruel thing to order," said he, "and my limbs be old; but seemin"
to me I might manage it."
He began to climb laboriously, rope in hand. As his eyes drew level with the wall"s coping he saw to his joy Trevarthen"s troop returning along the road, though not from the direction he had expected. Better still, the next moment they saw him on the bough, dark against the red sky.
One rider waved his whip.
He dropped the rope as if by accident, crying out at his clumsiness.
"Curse your bungling!" yelled Roger, and stooped to pick it up.
Pascoe descended again, full of apologies. He had used the instant well.
The riders had seen the one frantic wave of his hand, and were galloping down the lane towards the rear of the house.
Had Roger, as the sound of hoofs reached him, supposed it to be Trevarthen"s troop returning, he might yet have persisted. But Trevarthen had ridden towards h.e.l.leston, and these hors.e.m.e.n came apparently out of the north. His thoughts flew at once to a surprise, and he shouted to Pascoe and Malachi to get their guns and hurry to their posts. The youth at his feet lay in a swoon of terror. He kicked the body savagely and ran, too, for his gun.
Half a minute later Jane came screaming back through the house.
"Oh, master--they"ve caught her! They"ve caught her!"
"Caught whom?"
"Why, Jezebel herself! They"ve got her in the yard at this moment, and Master Trevarthen"s a-bringing her indoors!"
XIII.
Trevarthen had planned the stroke, and brought it off dashingly.
From the h.e.l.leston road that morning he and his troop had turned aside and galloped across the moors to the outskirts of the village where Mrs.
Stephen lodged. No man dared to oppose them, if any man wished to.
They had dragged her from the house, hoisted her on horseback and headed for home unpursued. It was all admirably simple as Trevarthen related it, swelling with honest pride, by the kitchen fire. The woman herself heard the tale, cowering in a chair beside the hearth, wondering what her death would be.
Roger Stephen looked at her. "Ah!"--he drew a long breath.
Then Trevarthen went on to tell--for the wonders of the day were not over--how on their homeward road they had caught up with a messenger from Truro hurrying towards Steens, with word that the new Sheriff was already on the march with a regiment drawn off from the barracks at Plymouth, and had reached Bodmin. In two days" time they might find themselves besieged again.
Roger listened, but scarcely seemed to hear. His eyes were on the woman in the chair, and he drew another long breath.
With that a man came crawling through the doorway--or stooping so low that he seemed to crawl.
It was young Rodda, and he ran to his brother Nathaniel with a sob, and clasped him about the legs.
"Hullo!" cried Nathaniel. "Why, Hick, lad, what"s taken "ee?"
Said Roger carelessly, "I was going to hang him. But I can afford to stretch a point now. Carry the cur to the gate and fling him outside."
"Dang it all, Mr. Stephen," spoke up Nat; "you may be master in your own house, but I reckon Hick and I didn" come here for our own pleasure, and I see no sport in jokin" a lad till you"ve scared "en pretty well out of his five senses. Why, see here, friends--he"s tremblin" like a leaf!"
"He--he meant it!" sobbed Hickory.
"Meant it? Of course I meant it--the dirty, thievin", letter-writer!"
Roger"s eyes blazed with madness, and the men by the hearth growled and shrank away from him. He pulled out his pistol and, walking up, presented it at Nat Rodda"s head. "Am I captain here, or amn"t I? Very well, then: I caught that cur to-day writin" a letter--never you mind of what sort.
"Twas a sort of which I"d promised that the man I caught writing one should never write a second."
"You"re mighty tender to women, all of a sudden!" Nat--to do him credit-- answered up pluckily enough for a man addressing the muzzle of a pistol not two feet from his nose.
"We"ll see about that by-and-by," said Roger grimly. "You"ve helped do me a favour, and I"ll cry quits with you and your brother for"t. But I want no more of you or your haveage: yon"s the door--walk!"
"Oh, if that"s how you take it,"--Nat Rodda shrugged his shoulders and obeyed, his brother at his heels. One or two of the men would have interfered, but Trevarthen checked them. Malachi alone went with the pair to let them forth and bar the gates behind them.
"I thank ye, Master Stephen," said Nat, turning in the doorway with a short laugh. "You"ve let two necks of your company out o" the halter."
He swung round and stepped out into the darkness.
His words smote like the stroke of a bell upon one or two hearts in the kitchen. Trevarthen stepped forward briskly to undo the mischief.
"We"ll have forty of the boys back before daylight: d.i.c.k Eva"s taken a fresh horse to carry round the warning. Get to your posts, lads, and leave Jane here to cook supper. "Tis "one and all" now, and fight square; and if Hick Rodda has been sending his dirty threats to Nansclowan and frightening women, he"s a good riddance, say I."
The woman in the chair heard all this, and saw Trevarthen draw Roger aside as the men filed out. They were muttering. By-and-by Roger commanded Jane to go and set candles in the parlour. Again they fell to muttering, and so continued until she returned.
Roger Stephen came slowly forward to the hearth.
"Stand up!" he said, and Mrs. Stephen stood up.
She could not raise her eyes to his face, but felt that he was motioning her to walk before him. Her limbs seemed weighted with lead, but she obeyed.
They pa.s.sed out together and into the parlour, where Roger shut the door behind him and locked it.
XIV.
A dull fire burnt on the hearth, banked high upon a pile of white wood-ash.
Beside it lay a curiously-shaped ladle with a curl at the end of its iron handle. Two candles stood on the oval table in the centre of the room-- the table at which she had been used to sit as mistress. She found her accustomed chair and seated herself. She had no doubt but that this man meant to kill her. In a dull way she wondered how it would be.