fter blow rained on
the stout timbers. At length two fell crashing.

And then from a breastwork within, drawn across the flagged pathway of the
courtlage, a ragged volley rang out and a dozen bullets swept the opening.

In the crowd across the road many women screamed. Two red-coats dropped,
one of them striking the ironwork of the gate with his forehead. A third
ran back into the road, stared about him, flung up his arms and tumbled
dead. The man who had fallen against the gate lifted himself by its bars,
sank again, and was dragged aside by his comrades. The third soldier lay
curled in a heap and did not stir.

Across the smoke floating through the entrance Sir James looked at the
sergeant. His own coat-cuff had been shorn through by a bullet.
The sergeant shook his head.

With a motion of his hand he gave the order to desist. In silence the
soldiers picked up their dead and wounded and began their retreat, the
crowd pressing forward to watch them--a line of faces peering through the
hazel-boughs. It neither cheered nor hissed.

As the enemy drew off, hundreds climbed down into the road and crowded
around the pools of blood, gazing but saying little.

XII.

The assailants returned to Nansclowan, where the Sheriff opened his mind
to Sir John in a bitter harangue and rode homeward in dudgeon.
The soldiers were marched back to Pendennis. And so, to the scandal of
the law, for four months the quarrel rested.

It sounds incredible. Sir James reached his house and spent a week in
drawing up a report alleging that he and his twenty soldiers had been met
by a crowd of over a thousand people, all partisans of Stephen; and that
on attempting a forcible entry of Steens he had been murderously fired
upon, with the loss of two killed and one wounded. There was not an
incorrect statement in the report; and no one could read it without
gathering that the whole of West Cornwall was up in arms and in open
rebellion against the Crown.

Walpole read it in due course, and sent for Sir John Piers, who had
returned to London for a short visit on parliamentary business.
The two men (you will remember) were deadly political foes, and Sir John's
first thought on receiving the message was, "Walpole is weakening, but he
must be hard put to it when he sends for _me_, to bribe me!" However, he
waited on the Minister.

Walpole greeted him with a pleasant bow: he had always a soft spot in his
heart for the chubby-faced