Two Sides of the Face Part 4

"In the challs." [Cattle sheds.]

"Take you this gun and give him the other, and you're to fire on anyone who tries to force the stable gate. They're loaded, the pair of 'em, with buckshot. Now, this fellow,"--he reached down a third gun--"is loaded blank, and here's another with a bullet in him. I'll take these out to the front."

"But, master, 'tis a hanging matter!"

"And I'll hang, and so shall you, before e'er a one o' these scoundrels sets foot in Steens. Go you off quick and tell Joseph, if there's trouble, to let slip the tether of the shorthorn bull."

Roger crammed a powder-flask into one pocket with a handful of wadding, a bag of bullets into another, took his two guns, and went forth into the courtlage, in time to see a purple-faced man in an ill-fitting Dalmahoy wig climb off his horse and advance to the gate, with half a dozen retainers behind him.

He tried the latch, and, finding it locked, began to shake the gate by the bars.

"Hullo!" said Roger. "And who may you be, making so bold?"

"Is your name Roger Stephen?" the purple-faced man demanded.

"I asked you a question first. Drop shaking my gate and answer it, or else take yourself off."

"And I order you to open at once, sir! I'm the Under-Sheriff of Cornwall, and I've come with a writ of ejectment. You've defied the law long enough, Master Stephen; you've brought me far; and, if you've ever heard the name of William Sanderc.o.c.k, you know he's one to stand no nonsense."

"I never heard tell of you," said Roger, appearing to search his memory; "but speaking off-hand and at first sight, I should say you was either half-drunk or tolerably unlucky in your face." And indeed the Under-Sheriff had set out from Truro at dawn and imbibed much brandy on the road.

"Open the gate!" he foamed.

Roger stepped back and chose his gun. "You'd best lead him away quiet,"

he advised the men in the road. "You won't? Then I'll give the fool till I count three. One--two--three." And he let off his gun full in the Under-Sheriff's face.

The poor man staggered back, clapped his hand to his jaw, and howled; for the discharge was close enough to scorch his face and singe his wig.

Also one eyebrow was burnt, and before he knew if he still retained his sight, his horse had plunged free and was galloping down the road with the whole posse in pursuit, and only too glad of the excuse for running.

"Turn loose the bull!" shouted Roger, swinging round towards the house.

The Under-Sheriff found his legs, and bolted for dear life after his horse.

X.

Travellers in the Great Sahara report many marvels, but none so mysterious and inexplicable as its power of carrying rumour. The desert (say they) is one vast echoing gossip-shop, and a man cannot be killed in the dawn at Mabruk but his death will be whispered before night at Bel Abbas or Amara, and perhaps bruited before the next sun rises on the sea-coast or beside the sh.o.r.es of Lake Chad.

We need not wonder, therefore, that within a few hours the whole of West Cornwall knew how Roger Stephen had defied the Under-Sheriff and fired upon him. Indeed, it is likely enough that in the whole of West Cornwall, at the moment, Roger Stephen was the man least aware of the meaning of the Under-Sheriff's visit and least alive to its consequences. Ever since his father's death that desolate county had been humming with his fame: his wrongs had been discussed at every hearthside, and his probable action.

There were cottages so far away as St. Ives where the dispute over Steens had been followed intently through each step in the legal proceedings and the issue of each step speculated on, while in Steens itself the master sat inert and blind to all but the righteousness of his cause--thanks in part to Malachi, but in part also to his own taciturn habit. Men did not gossip with him; they watched him. He was even ignorant that Mrs. Stephen had been pelted with mud in the streets of Penzance, and forced to pack and take refuge in Plymouth.

Next morning Malachi brought word of another small body of men on the road, advancing this time from the direction of h.e.l.leston. Three of them (he added) carried guns.

Roger made his dispositions precisely as before, save that he now loaded each of his guns with ball, and again met his visitors at the gate.

"Don't fire, that's a dear man!" cried a voice through the bars; and Roger wondered; for it belonged to a young yeoman from St. Keverne, and its tone was friendly.

"Hey, Trevarthen? What brings you here?" he demanded.

"Goodwill to help ye, if you're not above taking it. You've been served like a dog, Stephen; but we'll stand by you, though we go to Launceston jail for it. Open the gate, like a good man."

"You'll swear 'tis no trick you're playing?"

"If we mean aught but neighbourliness, may our bones rot inside of us!"

Trevarthen took oath.

Roger opened the padlock and loosened the chain. "I take this very kind of you, friends," he said slowly.

"Why, man, 'tis but the beginning!" the cheerful Trevarthen a.s.sured him.

"Once we've made the start, you'll find the whole country trooping in; it but wants the signal. Lift your hand, and by nightfall you can have fivescore men at your back: ay, and I'm thinking you'll need 'em; for Sanderc.o.c.k went back no farther than Nansclowan, and there he'll be getting the ear of Sir John, that arrived down from London but yesterday."

"Right's right," growled Roger, "and not even Sir John can alter it."

"Ay, and he won't try nor wish to, if we stand to you and put a firm face on it. But in dealing with Sanderc.o.c.k he deals with the law, and must point to something stronger than you can be, standing here alone.

Trust Sir John: he's your friend, and the stouter show we make the more we help him to prove it."

"There's something in what you say," agreed Roger.

"Why, 'tis plain common sense. A fool like Sanderc.o.c.k wants a lesson he can understand, and he'll understand naught but what stares him in his ugly face."

All that day driblets of volunteers arrived at Steens' gate, and at nightfall a party of twoscore from Porthleven, the widow's native village, where it seemed that her conduct was peculiarly detested. Plainly the whole country was roused and boiling over in righteous wrath. Roger, who had brooded so long alone, could hardly credit what he saw and heard, but it touched him to the heart. That day of rallying was perhaps the sweetest in his life. Most of the men carried guns, and some had even loaded themselves with provisions--a flitch of bacon or a bag of potatoes--against a possible siege. They chose their billets in the barns, hay-lofts, granaries, the cider-house, even the empty cattle-stalls, and under the brisk captaincy of Trevarthen fell to work stockading the weak spots in the defence and piercing loopholes in the outer walls. Finding that the slope behind the house commanded an open s.p.a.ce in the south-west corner of the yard, they even began to erect a breastwork here, behind which they might defy musketry.

That night fifty-six men supped in Steens kitchen, drank Roger's health, and laughed over their labours. But in the midst of their mirth Roger, on his way to the cellar with a cider-keg under each arm, was intercepted by Malachi, who should have been standing sentry by the yard gate.

"Go back to your post, you careless fool!" commanded Roger, but the old man, beckoning mysteriously, led him out and across the dark yard to a pent beside the gate, and there in the deep shadow he could just discern the figure of a man--a very short man, but erect and somehow formidable even before he spoke.

"Good evening, Stephen!" said the stranger in a low, easy voice.

"Sir John!" Roger drew back apace.

"Ay, and very much at your service. I'm your friend, if you'll believe me, and I don't doubt you've been hardly used; but there's one thing to be done, and you must do it at once. To be short, stop this fooling; and quit."

"'Quit'?" echoed Roger.

"This very night. You've put yourself on the wrong side of the law, or allowed yourself to be put there. You're in the ditch, my friend, and pretty deep. I won't say but I can get you righted in some fas.h.i.+on--you may count on my trying, at least. But you've fired on the Under-Sheriff, the law's after you, and not a hand can I lift until you quit Steens and make yourself scarce for awhile."

"'Quit Steens'?" Roger echoed again with his hand to his forehead.

"But, Sir John, you are fresh home from London, and you don't know the rights o' this: 'tis just to bide in Steens and be left quiet that I'm fighting. And here's the whole country to back me, Sir John; over fifty men in my kitchen at this moment, and all ready to burn powder rather than see this wrong committed on me!"

"Yes, yes, so I've just discovered," answered Sir John impatiently; "and there's your worst peril, Stephen. Man, I tell you this makes matters worse; and to-morrow may turn them from worse to incurable.

Now, don't argue. I'm your friend, and am risking something at this moment to prove it. At the top of the lane here you'll find a horse: mount him, and ride to Helford Ferry for dear life. Two hundred yards up the sh.o.r.e towards Frenchman's Creek there's a boat made fast, and down off Durgan a ketch anch.o.r.ed. She's bound for Havre, and the skipper will weigh as soon as you're aboard. Mount and ride like a sensible fellow, and I'll walk into your kitchen and convince every man Jack that you have done well and wisely. Reach France and lie quiet for a time, till this storm blows over: the skipper will find lodgings for you and supply you with money, and I shall know your address. Come, what say you?"

"Sir John," Roger stammered hoa.r.s.ely after a pause, "I--I say it humbly, your house and mine have known one another for long, and my fathers have stood beside yours afore now--and--and I didn't expect this from you, Sir John."

"Why, what ails ye, man?"