Trevarthen had planned the stroke, and brought it off dashingly. From the Helleston road that morning he and his troop had turned aside and galloped across the moors to the outskirts of the village where Mrs. Stephen lodged. No man dared to oppose them, if any man wished to. They had dragged her from the house, hoisted her on horseback and headed for home unpursued. It was all admirably simple as Trevarthen related it, swelling with honest pride, by the kitchen fire. The woman herself heard the tale, cowering in a chair beside the hearth, wondering what her death would be. Roger Stephen looked at her. "Ah!"--he drew a long breath. Then Trevarthen went on to tell--for the wonders of the day were not over--how on their homeward road they had caught up with a messenger from Truro hurrying towards Steens, with word that the new Sheriff was already on the march with a regiment drawn off from the barracks at Plymouth, and had reached Bodmin. In two days' time they might find themselves besieged again. Roger listened, but scarcely seemed to hear. His eyes were on the woman in the chair, and he drew another long breath. With that a man came crawling through the doorway--or stooping so low that he seemed to crawl. It was young Rodda, and he ran to his brother Nathaniel with a sob, and clasped him about the legs. "Hullo!" cried Nathaniel. "Why, Hick, lad, what's taken 'ee?" Said Roger carelessly, "I was going to hang him. But I can afford to stretch a point now. Carry the cur to the gate and fling him outside." "Dang it all, Mr. Stephen," spoke up Nat; "you may be master in your own house, but I reckon Hick and I didn' come here for our own pleasure, and I see no sport in jokin' a lad till you've scared 'en pretty well out of his five senses. Why, see here, friends--he's tremblin' like a leaf!" "He--he meant it!" sobbed Hickory. "Meant it? Of course I meant it--the dirty, thievin', letter-writer!" Roger's eyes blazed with madness, and the men by the hearth growled and shrank away from him. He pulled out his pistol and, walking up, presented it at Nat Rodda's head. "Am I captain here, or amn't I? Very well, then: I caught that cur to-day writin' a letter--never you mind of what sort. 'Twas a sort of which I'd promised that the man I caught writing one should never write a second." "You're mighty tender to women, all of a sudden!" Nat--to do him credit-- answered up pluckily enough for a man addressing the muzzle of a pistol not two feet from his nose. "We'll see about that by-and-by," said Roger grimly. "You've helped do me a favour, and I'll cry quits with you and your brother for't. But I want no more of you or your haveage: yon's the door--walk!" "Oh, if that's how you take it,"--Nat Rodda shrugged his shoulders and obeyed, his brother at his heels. One or two of the men would have interfered, but Trevarthen checked them. Malachi alone went with the pair to let them forth and bar the gates behind them.