"I don't quite take you. Eh? 'Soldiers'? My dear fellow—an affair of this kind—you surely didn't expect me to make myself ridiculous by marching through Cornwall with a regiment!"
"You mean to say that you've brought none?"
"Oh, to serve a writ on a yeoman!" and Sir James laughed heartily.
"Look here, Tillie, you shall ride over with me to-morrow at daybreak and look at the place. The man has sixty stout farmers at his back. They know that the soldiery has been sent for, and for five days they've been working like niggers. The front of the house is loopholed, and along the rear, which was their weak point, they've opened a trench six feet wide by six deep. By to-night's report they have even begun as outworks two barricades across the high-road, and no traffic may pass without permission."
"It seems to me your part of the world needs looking after," Sir James exclaimed testily.
Sir John ignored this shaft. "You'd better ride over to Pendennis Castle to-morrow and borrow as many men as the garrison can spare you."
"A score should be plenty," said Sir James. "It's astonishing—or so I've always heard—what a few trained men will do against irregulars."
"Treble the number, and you may save bloodshed," was Sir John's advice.
Early next morning, after a cursory inspection of the defences, the Sheriff rode over to Pendennis and held consultation with the Governor. The Governor, who had fifty men in garrison, agreed that twenty would suffice for the job; so twenty were told off, under command of a sergeant, and that same afternoon marched with Sir James to Nansclowan. On their way through Wendron church-town they were hissed and pelted with lumps of turf; but this hint of popular feeling made slight impression on the sanguine Sheriff, who had convinced himself that the resistance of Steens would collapse at the sight of his redcoats.
Having rested them at Nansclowan for the night, he led them forth at dawn and along the high-road to within fifty yards of the barricade which the defenders had drawn across it. There was no thought of tactics. He consulted for a minute with the sergeant, who knew nothing of the strength of the defence except from gossip (which he disbelieved), and the soldiers were ordered to charge.