let himself down
through the trap-door into the cow-house, which in all, or nearly all,
old peel towers formed the lower story of the building. Cautiously
unclosing the door of the cow-house, which opened on the outer air close
to the flight of stone steps leading up to the main door of the tower,
he stepped out. There, plainly to be seen at top of the stair, were
several men, busily employed in trying to gain an entrance.

"Ye bluidy scoundrels," roared Stokoe, "I'll knock a hole in some o' ye
that the stars will shine through."

And with that he let drive at the nearest, the charge, at so close a
range, literally "knocking a hole" in him. Like a startled covey of
partridges the remaining robbers fled, not only without attempting
reprisals, but without even waiting to use the steps as an aid to
escape; they simply flew through the air to mother earth and made tracks
towards safety, anywhere, out of the reach of Frank Stokoe's vengeance;
which perhaps was the wisest thing they could have done, for Stokoe was
the kind of man who in a case such as this would willingly have knocked
a hole in each one of them. In those days people were not very
squeamish, and Stokoe seems to have gone quietly back to bed without
greatly troubling himself about the slain robber; but the man's friends
must have stolen back during the night, for in a copse near by, in a
shallow grave hastily scooped out of the frozen earth, the dead body was
found next day.

It is almost needless to say that Frank Stokoe was of those who would be
certain to concern themselves in an enterprise such as the Rising of
1715. His sympathies were entirely with the Stuart, and against the
Hanoverian King. Moreover, though he owned his peel tower and the land
surrounding it, he was yet, as regards other land, a tenant of the Earl
of Derwentwater, as well as being a devoted admirer of that nobleman.
Naturally, therefore, when the Earl took the field, Stokoe followed him;
and had all been of his frame of mind, there had been no ignominious
surrender at Preston. Whilst fighting was to be done, no man fought so
hard, or with such thorough enjoyment, as Stokoe. "Surrender" was a part
of the great game that he did not understand; he was not of the stuff
that deals in "regrettable incidents." At Preston that day, when all was
done, there stood King George's men on either side, as well as in his
front; in his rear a high stone wall, even to a man less heavily
handicapped t