"He'll summon you in form, depend on't. Besides, he has to go gently. He knows by this time you hold the woman here, and he don't want her harmed if he can avoid it." "Ah!" said Roger. "To be sure--I forgot the woman." While the two men stood meditating a moan sounded in the room below. It seemed to rise through the planking close by their feet. Trevarthen caught Roger by the arm. "What's that? You haven't been hurting her? You promised--" "No," Roger interrupted, "I haven't hurt her, nor tried to. She's sick, maybe. I'll step down and have a talk with Jane." On the landing outside Mrs. Stephen's room the two men shook hands, and Trevarthen hurried down to go the round of his posts in the out-buildings. They never saw one another again. Roger hesitated a moment, then tapped at the door. After a long pause Jane opened it with a scared face. She whispered with him, and he turned and went heavily down the stairs; another moan from within followed him. At the front door Malachi met him, his face twitching with excitement. The Sheriff (said he) was at the gate demanding word with Master Stephen. For the moment Roger did not seem to hear. Then he lounged across the courtlage, fingering and examining the lock of his musket, with ne'er a glance nor a good morning for the dozen men posted beside their loopholes. Another half-dozen waited in the path for his orders; he halted, and told them curtly to march upstairs and man the attic windows, whence across the wall's coping their fire would sweep the approach from the fields; and so walked on and up to the gate, on which the Sheriff was now hammering impatiently. "Who's there?" he demanded. "Are you Roger Stephen?" answered the Sheriff's voice. "Roger Stephen of Steens--ay, that's my name." "Then I command you to open to me, in the name of King George." "What if I don't?" "Then 'twill be the worse for you and the ignorant men you're misleading. I'll give you five minutes to consider your answer." "You may have it in five seconds. What you want you must come and take. Anything more?" "Yes," said the Sheriff, "I am told that you have taken violent possession of the plaintiff in this suit. I warn you to do her no hurt, and I call upon you to surrender her." Roger laughed, and through the gate it sounded a sinister laugh enough. "I doubt," said he, "that she can come if she would." "I warn you also that any agreement or withdrawal of claim which you may wrest from her or force her to sign will under the circumstances be not worth the paper 'tis written on." Roger laughed again. "I never thought of such a thing. I leave such dirty tricks to your side. Go back with ye, Master Sheriff, and call up your soldiers, if you must."