opinions to himself."

VIII.

Next day Roger went over the house with Jane Trewoofe, the cook, and
collected all his stepmother's belongings. These he did up carefully into
three bales, and had them ready at the gate by six o'clock on the
following morning, when Pete Nancarrow, the carrier between Helleston and
Penzance, passed with his pack-ponies.

"You're to deliver these to the woman's own cottage over to Porthleven,"
was his order, conveyed by old Malachi.

Two days later, towards evening, Roger himself happened to be mending a
fence on the slope behind the house, when he looked along the road, spied
Pete returning, and stepped down to meet him.

"You delivered the parcels?"

Pete nodded.

"What's your charge?" asked Roger, dipping his hand in his pocket.

"Bless you, they're paid for. I took the goods round by way of Penzance,
meaning to deliver them on the return journey; but in Market-jew Street
whom should I run up against but the widow herself, sporting it on the arm
of a lawyer-fellow called Trudgian. 'Hullo, mistress!' says I, 'I've a
pack of goods belonging to you that I'm taking round to Porthleven.'
So she asked what they were, and I told her. 'There's no need for you to
drag them round to Porthleven,' said she, 'for I'm lodging here just now
while Mr. Trudgian gets up my case.' And with that they fetched me over
to Trudgian's office and paid me down on the table; 'for,' says the
lawyer, 'we won't put expense on a man so poor as Roger Stephen is like to
be, though he _have_ given these fal-lals a useless journey.' 'Tell ye
what, master; they mean to have you out of Steens if they can, that pair."

"Let 'em come and try," said Roger grimly.

The packman laughed. "That's what I told the folks over to Penzance.
That's the very speech I used: 'Let 'em come and try,' I said.
Everyone's prettily talking about the case."

"What can it concern anyone over there?"

"Why, bless you, the wide world's ringing with it! And look here, master,
I'll tell you another thing. The country's with you to a man.
You've been shamefully used, they say, and they mean it. Why, you've only
to lift a hand and you can have 'em at your back to defy the Sheriff and
all his works--if ever it should come to that."

"It won't," said Roger, turning back to the house.

This was the first news to reach him that his affairs were being publicly
discussed, and for a moment it annoyed him. Of danger he had scarcel