As they fell into rank, an old man, perched on the hedge hard by, rose lazily and turned to the crowd on the far side. "Here, help me down, some of ye," said he; "I knawed that there Sheriff was a fool the moment I set eyes on 'en."
Sir James heard and rode straight on. If a fool, he was no coward. The soldiers carried axes at their belts, and, dismounting, he led them up to the gate and showed them where to attack. Blow after blow rained on the stout timbers. At length two fell crashing.
And then from a breastwork within, drawn across the flagged pathway of the courtlage, a ragged volley rang out and a dozen bullets swept the opening.
In the crowd across the road many women screamed. Two red-coats dropped, one of them striking the ironwork of the gate with his forehead. A third ran back into the road, stared about him, flung up his arms and tumbled dead. The man who had fallen against the gate lifted himself by its bars, sank again, and was dragged aside by his comrades. The third soldier lay curled in a heap and did not stir.
Across the smoke floating through the entrance Sir James looked at the sergeant. His own coat-cuff had been shorn through by a bullet. The sergeant shook his head.
With a motion of his hand he gave the order to desist. In silence the soldiers picked up their dead and wounded and began their retreat, the crowd pressing forward to watch them—a line of faces peering through the hazel-boughs. It neither cheered nor hissed.
As the enemy drew off, hundreds climbed down into the road and crowded around the pools of blood, gazing but saying little.
XII.
The assailants returned to Nansclowan, where the Sheriff opened his mind to Sir John in a bitter harangue and rode homeward in dudgeon. The soldiers were marched back to Pendennis. And so, to the scandal of the law, for four months the quarrel rested.
It sounds incredible. Sir James reached his house and spent a week in drawing up a report alleging that he and his twenty soldiers had been met by a crowd of over a thousand people, all partisans of Stephen; and that on attempting a forcible entry of Steens he had been murderously fired upon, with the loss of two killed and one wounded. There was not an incorrect statement in the report; and no one could read it without gathering that the whole of West Cornwall was up in arms and in open rebellion against the Crown.