He served the supper himself, explaining Jane's absence by a lie.
Towards midnight the volunteers began to arrive, dropping in by ones and
twos; and by four in the morning, when Roger withdrew to his attic to
snatch a few hours' sleep, the garrison seemed likely to resume its old
strength. The news of the widow's capture exhilarated them all.
Even those who had come dejectedly felt that they now possessed a hostage
to play off, as a last card, against the law.
That night Roger Stephen, in his attic, slept as he had not slept for
months, and awoke in the grey dawn to find Trevarthen shaking him by the
shoulder.
"Hist, man! Come and look," said Trevarthen, and led him to the window.
Roger rubbed his eyes, and at first could see nothing. A white sea-fog
covered the land and made the view a blank; but by-and-by, as he stared,
the fog thinned a little, and disclosed, two fields away, a row of blurred
white tents, and another row behind it.
"How many do you reckon?" he asked quietly.
"Soldiers? I put 'em down at a hundred and fifty."
"And we've a bare forty."
"Fifty-two. A dozen came in from Breage soon after five. They're all
posted."
"A nuisance, this fog," said Roger, peering into it. Since the first
assault he and his men had levelled the hedge across the road, so that the
approach from the fields lay open, and could be swept from the loopholes
in the courtlage wall.
"I don't say that," answered Trevarthen cheerfully. "We may find it help
us before the day is out. Anyway, there's no chance of its lifting if
this wind holds."
"I wonder, now, the fellow didn't try a surprise and attack at once."
"He'll summon you in form, depend on't. Besides, he has to go gently.
He knows by this time you hold the woman here, and he don't want her
harmed if he can avoid it."
"Ah!" said Roger. "To be sure--I forgot the woman."
While the two men stood meditating a moan sounded in the room below.
It seemed to rise through the planking close by their feet.
Trevarthen caught Roger by the arm. "What's that? You haven't been
hurting her? You promised--"
"No," Roger interrupted, "I haven't hurt her, nor tried to. She's sick,
maybe. I'll step down and have a talk with Jane."
On the landing outside Mrs. Stephen's room the two men shook hands, and
Trevarthen hurried down to go the round of his posts in the out-buildings.
They never saw one another again. Roger hesitated a moment, then tapped
at the door.
After a long pause Jane opened it with a scared face. She whispered with
him, and he turned and went heavily down the stairs; another moan from
within followed him.
At the front door Malachi met him, his face twitching with excitement.
The Sheriff (said he) was at the gate demanding word with Master Stephen.
For the moment Roger did not seem to hear. Then he lounged across the
courtlage, fingering and examining the lock of his musket, with ne'er a
glance nor a good morning for the dozen men posted beside their loopholes.
Another half-dozen waited in the path for his orders; he halted, and told
them curtly to march upstairs and man the attic windows, whence across the
wall's coping their fire would sweep the approach from the fields; and so
walked on and up to the gate, on which the Sheriff was now hammering
impatiently.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"Are you Roger Stephen?" answered the Sheriff's voice.
"Roger Stephen of Steens--ay, that's my name."
"Then I command you to open to me, in the name of King George."
"What if I don't?"
"Then 'twill be the worse for you and the ignorant men you're misleading.
I'll give you five minutes to consider your answer."
"You may have it in five seconds. What you want you must come and take.
Anything more?"
"Yes," said the Sheriff, "I am told that you have taken violent possession
of the plaintiff in this suit. I warn you to do her no hurt, and I call
upon you to surrender her."
Roger laughed, and through the gate it sounded a sinister laugh enough.
"I doubt," said he, "that she can come if she would."
"I warn you also that any agreement or withdrawal of claim which you may
wrest from her or force her to sign will under the circumstances be not
worth the paper 'tis written on."
Roger laughed again. "I never thought of such a thing. I leave such
dirty tricks to your side. Go back with ye, Master Sheriff, and call up
your soldiers, if you must."
They tell that the first assault that day came nearest to succeeding.
The Sheriff had provided himself with scaling ladders, and, concentrating
his attack on the front, ordered his storming party to charge across the
road. They came with a rush in close order, and were checked, at the
point where the hedge had been levelled, by a withering fire from the
loopholes and attic windows. Four men dropped. Two ladders reached the
walls, one of them carried by a couple of men, who planted it, and then,
finding themselves unsupported, ran back to the main body. Six men with
the second ladder reached the wall, dropping a comrade on the way, and
climbed it. The first man leapt gallantly down among the defenders and
fell on the flags of the courtlage, breaking his ankle. The second, as he
poised himself on the coping, was picked off by a shot from the attics and
toppled backwards. The others stood by the foot of the ladder bawling for
support.
But the momentary dismay of the main body had been fatal. Each man at the
loopholes had two guns, and each pair an attendant to reload for them.
Before the soldiers could pull themselves together a second volley poured
from the loop-holes, and again three men dropped. One or two belated
shots followed the volley, and a moment later the captain in command, as
he waved his men forward, let drop his sword, clenched his fists high
above him, and fell headlong in the roadway across their feet. Instinct
told them that the course to which he had been yelling them on was, after
all, the safest--to rush the road between two volleys and get close under
the wall. Once there, they were safe from the marksmen, who could not
depress their guns sufficiently to take aim. And so, with a shout, at
length they carried the road; but too late to recover the first ladder,
the foot of which swung suddenly high in air. This ladder was a tall one,
overtopping the wall by several feet; and Pascoe, remembering the
wain-rope lying beneath the ash tree, had run for it, cleverly lassoed its
projecting top, and, with two men helping, jerked it high and dragged it
inboard with a long slide and a crash.
There were now about a hundred soldiers at the foot of the wall, and the
fate of Steens appeared to be sealed, when help came as from the clouds.
Throughout the struggle forms had been flitting in the rear of the
soldiers. The fog had concealed from the Sheriff that he was fighting, as
his predecessor had fought, within a ring of spectators many hundreds in
number; and to-day not a few of these spectators had brought guns.
It is said that in the hottest of the fray Trevarthen broke out from the
rear of Steens and marshalled them. Certain it is that no sooner were the
soldiers huddled beneath the wall than a bullet sang down the road from
the north, then another, then a volley; and as they faced round in panic
on this flanking fire, another volley swept up the road from the south and
took them in the rear.
They could see no enemy. Likely enough the enemy could not see them.
But, packed as they were, the cross-fire could not fail to be deadly.
The men in the courtlage had drawn back towards the house as the ladder
began to sway above the wall. They waited, taking aim, but no head showed
above the coping. They heard, and wondered at, the firing in the road:
then, while still they waited, one by one the ladders were withdrawn.
The soldiers, maddened by the fire, having lost their captain, and being
now out of hand, parted into two bodies and rushed, the one up the other
down the road, to get at grips with their new assailants. But it is ill
chasing an invisible foe, and a gun is easily tossed over a hedge.
After pursuing maybe for quarter of a mile they met indeed two or three
old men, innocent-looking but flushed about the face, sauntering towards
the house with their hands in their pockets; and because their hands when
examined were black and smelt of gunpowder, these innocent-looking old men
went back in custody to the post where the bugles were sounding the
recall. The soldiers turned back sullenly enough, but presently quickened
their pace as a yellow glare in the fog gave the summons a new meaning.
Their camp was ablaze from end to end!
This was a bitter pill for the Sheriff. He had come in force, determined
to prove to the rebels that they had a stronger man than Sir James Tillie
to deal with, and he had failed even more ignominiously. He cursed the
inhabitants of West Cornwall, and he cursed the fog; but he was not a
fool, and he wasted no time in a wild-goose chase over an unknown country
where his men could not see twenty yards before them. Having saved what
he could of the tents and trodden out the embers, he consulted with the
young lieutenant now in command and came to two resolutions: to send to
Pendennis Castle for a couple of light six-pounders, and, since these
could not arrive until the morrow, to keep the defence well harassed
during the remaining hours of daylight, not attempting a second assault in
force, but holding his men in shelter and feeling around the position for
a weak point.
The day had passed noon before these new dispositions were planned.
Posting ten men and a corporal to guard the charred remains of the camp,
and two small bodies to patrol the road east and west of the house and to
keep a portion of the defence busy in the courtlage, the lieutenant led
the remainder of his force through an orchard divided from the south end
of the house by a narrow lane, over which a barn abutted. Its high blank
wall had been loopholed on both floors and was quite unassailable, but its
roof was of thatch. And as he studied it, keeping his men in cover,
a happy inspiration occurred to him. He sent back to the camp for an
oil-can and a parcel of cotton wadding, and by three o'clock had opened a
brisk fire of flaming bullets on the thatch. Within twenty minutes the
marksmen had it well ignited. Behind and close above it rose a gable of
the house itself, with a solitary window overlooking the ridge, and their
hope was that the wind would carry the fire from one building to another.
Thatch well sodden with winter's rain does not blaze or crackle.
Dense clouds of smoke went up, and soon small lines of flame were running
along the slope of the roof, dying down, and bursting forth anew.
By the light of them, through the smoke, the soldiers saw a man at the
window above, firing, reloading, and firing again. They sent many a shot
at the window; but good aim from their cover was impossible, and the
loopholes of the barn itself spat bullets viciously and kept the assault
from showing its head.
The man at the window--it was Roger Stephen--exposed himself recklessly
even when the fire from the loopholes ceased, as to the lieutenant's
surprise it did quite suddenly.
For a minute or so the thatch burned on in silence. Then from within the
building came the sound of an axe crashing, stroke on stroke, upon the
posts and timbers of the roof. Some madman was bringing down the
barn-roof upon him to save the house. The man at the window went on
loading and firing.
The soldiers themselves held their breath, and almost let it go in a cheer
when, with a rumble and a thunderous roar, the roof sank and collapsed,
sending up one furious rush of flame in a column of dust. But as the dust
poured down the flame sank with it. The house was saved. They looked
about them and saw the light fading out of the sky, and the lieutenant
gave the order to return to camp. The man at the window sent a parting
shot after them.
And with that ended the great assault, but scarcely had the Sheriff
reached camp when a voice came crying after him through the dusk, and,
turning, he spied a figure waving a white rag on a stick. The messenger
was old Malachi, and he halted at a little distance, but continued to wave
his flag vigorously.
"Hey?" bawled back the Sheriff. "What is it?"
"Flag o' truce!" bawled Malachi in answer. "Master's compliments, and if
you've done for the day he wants to know if you've such a thing as a
surgeon."
"Pretty job for us if we hadn't," growled the Sheriff. "I keep no
surgeons for lawbreakers. How many wounded have you?"
"Ne'er a man amongst us, 'cept poor Jack Trevarthen, and he's dead.
'Tisn' for a man, 'tis for a woman. Mistress Stephen's crying out, and
the master undertakes if you send a surgeon along he shall be treated
careful."
So back with Malachi went the regimental surgeon, who had done his work
with the wounded some hours before. Roger Stephen met him at the side
wicket, and, leading him indoors, pointed up the stairs. "When 'tis
over," said he, "you'll find me yonder in the parlour." He turned away,
and upstairs the young doctor went.
Roger entered the parlour and shut the door behind him. The room was dark
and the hearth cold; but he groped for a chair and sat for two hours
alone, motionless, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on his
clasped, smoke-begrimed hands. He was listening. Now and again a moan
reached him from the room overhead. From the kitchen came the sound of
voices cursing loudly at intervals, but for the most part muttering--
muttering. . .
The cursers were those who came in from their posts to snatch a handful of
supper, and foraged about in larder and pantry demanding to know what had
become of Jane. Jane was upstairs. . .
The mutterers were men who had abandoned their posts to discuss the
situation by the kitchen fire. A brisk assault just now could hardly have
missed success. Trevarthen's death had demoralised the garrison, and
these men by the fire were considering the risk to their necks.
Roger knew what they were discussing. By rising and stepping into the
kitchen he could at least have shamed them back to duty. He knew this
full well, yet he sat on motionless. . .
A sound fetched him to his feet--a child's wail.
He stood up in the darkness lifting his arms . . . as a man might yawn and
stretch himself awaking from a long dream.
Someone tapped at the door, turned the handle, and stood irresolutely
there peering into the darkness.
"Yes?" said Roger, advancing.
"Ah!" it was the surgeon's voice--"I beg your pardon, but finding you in
darkness--Yes, it's all right--a fine boy, and the mother, I should say,
doing well. Do you wish to go up?"
"God forbid!" said Roger, and led him to the kitchen, where the whisperers
started up at his entrance. In the middle of the room, on a board across
two trestles, lay something hidden by a white sheet--Trevarthen's body,
recovered from the ruins of the barn.
"He was my friend," said Roger simply, pausing by the corpse.
Then he turned with a grim smile on the malcontents. "Where's the
brandy?" he asked. "The doctor'll have a drink afore he turns out into
the night."
"No, I thank you, Mr. Stephen," said the young surgeon.
"Won't take it from me? Well, I thank ye all the same." He led his guest
forth, let him out by the wicket, and returned to the kitchen.
"Lads," said he, "the night's foggy yet. You may slip away to your homes,
if you go quiet. Step and tell the others, and send Malachi to me.
I--I thank ye, friends, but, as you've been arguing to yourselves, the
game's up; we won't stand another assault to-morrow."
They filed out and left him, none asking--as Trevarthen would have asked--
concerning his own safety. By Trevarthen's body Malachi found him
standing; and again, and in the same attitude, found him standing by it a
quarter of an hour later, when, having muffled the horses' hoofs in straw,
he returned to announce that all was ready, and the lane clear towards the
moors. In so short a time the whole garrison had melted away.
"He was my friend," said Roger again, looking down on the sheet, and
wondered why this man had loved him. Indeed, there was no explanation
except that Trevarthen had been just Trevarthen.
He followed Malachi, wondering the while if he had ever thrown Trevarthen
an affectionate word. Yet this man had cheerfully given up life for him,
as he, Roger Stephen, was at this moment giving up more than life for a
woman he hated.
He walked forth from Steens, leading his horse softly. At the foot of the
lane he mounted, looked back in the darkness, and lifted a fist against
the sky.
Then they headed eastward, and rode, Malachi and he, over the soundless
turf and through the fog, breasting the moor together.
A little after midnight, on the high ground, they reined up, straining
their ears at a rumbling sound borne up to them from the valley road
below--the sound (though they knew it not) of two cannon ploughing through
the mire towards Steens.
At eight o'clock next morning one of these guns opened fire, and with its
first shot ripped a breach through the courtlage wall. There came no
answer. When the Sheriff, taking courage, rode up to summon the house,
its garrison consisted of two women and one sleeping babe.