ight to the spot where Hicks and Dunne were
lurking. When he had taken them, he swung round on Carpenter, who had
followed.

"These be but two," he said, "and to my knowledge three rogues came
hither last night. No shufling with me, rascal. Where have you bestowed
the other?"

"I swear, as Heaven's my witness, I do not know where he is," protested
the afflicted steward, truly enough.

Penruddock turned to his men.

"Make search," he bade them; and search was made in the ruthless manner
of such searches.

The brutal soldiers passed from room to room beating the wainscoting
with pike and musket-butts, splintering and smashing heedlessly. Presses
were burst open and their contents scattered; chests were broken into
and emptied, the searchers appropriating such objects as took their
fancy, with true military cynicism. A mirror was shattered, and some
boards of the floor were torn up because a sergeant conceived that the
blows of his halbert rang hollow.

When the tumult was at its height, came her ladyship at last into the
room, where Colonel Penruddock stood watching the operations of his men.
She stood in the doorway leaning upon her ebony cane, her faded eyes
considering the gaunt soldier with reproachful question.

"Sir," she asked him with gentle irony, masking her agitation, "has my
house been given over to pillage?"

He bowed, doffing his plumed hat with an almost excessive courtesy.

"To search, madame," he corrected her. And added: "In the King's name."

"The King," she answered, "may give you authority to search my house,
but not to plunder it. Your men are robbing and destroying."

He shrugged. It was the way of soldiers. Fine manners, he suggested,
were not to be expected of their kind. And he harangued her upon the
wrong she had done in harbouring rebels and giving entertainment to the
King's enemies.

"That is not true," said she. "I know of no King's enemies."

He smiled darkly upon her from his great height. She was so frail a body
and so old that surely it was not worth a man's while to sacrifice
her on the altar of revenge. But not so thought Colonel Penruddock.
Therefore he smiled.

"Two of them, a snivelling Jack Presbyter named Hicks and a rascal named
Dunne, are taken already. Pray, madame, be so free and ingenuous with me
aye, and so kind to yourself--as if there be any other person concealed
in your house--and I am sure there is somebody else--to deliver him up,
and you shall come t