Lord Rosmore thought little about the assizes as he supped alone and drank his wine, unconscious of the many times he filled and emptied the glass. The hunting of fugitives was not to his taste, unless the fugitive chanced to be his personal enemy. He was sick at some of the cruelties he had been forced to witness; he hated and despised Judge Jeffreys, and almost shuddered at the thought of the punishment which was about to fall upon the crowd of ignorant peasants imprisoned in Dorchester. Had he been judge he would have treated them leniently, and probably no fear of the King's displeasure would have made him act otherwise; but for the furtherance of his own desires he had another standard of morality. It was not a standard made to suit the present circumstances, but one that had guided him through life, the primitive ideal that what a man desires he must fight for and take as best he may. From his youth upwards he had coveted little that he had not obtained; the success was everything, the means used did not trouble him. If fair ones failed, foul ones were resorted to, and his conscience troubled him not at all. If, without hindrance to himself, he could return some service for one rendered, he did so, and with a certain class of men and women won for himself a name for generosity. To withstand him, however, no matter in how small a thing, to baulk his aims and desires, directly or indirectly, was to turn him into an implacable enemy, the more dangerous because no scruple of honour would weigh with him or direct his actions. At the present moment he knew three persons were opposed to him--Gilbert Crosby; the fiddler, Martin Fairley; and Barbara Lanison. Had the first two been in his hands he would have destroyed them. If, to accomplish this, false witnesses had to be found, he would have found them, and would have slept not one whit the less at night. He hated them both, and was still scheming for their downfall. Had circumstances so chanced that these two were powerless to be of further danger to him, he would still have hated them, would still have crushed them at the first opportunity. He was not a man to forgive an injury. Truly, they were almost powerless to baulk him now, he argued, as he drained his glass again. What could two men do in Dorchester at the present moment, with the town full of soldiers, and Jeffreys at hand to deal out summary justice? The brown mask no longer hid a person of mystery; the features of Gilbert Crosby were known to dozens of men who had been outwitted by him. He would not dare to walk the streets by day. As for this fiddler fellow, what power had he to cajole rough soldiery? He might work upon the superstition of Sir John Lanison at Aylingford, might play upon the heartstrings of a woman, but these hard-drinking, hard-swearing men were not likely to fall victims to his fooleries. Even if he discovered where his mistress was lodged, he would not be able to come near her.