How?

Of course, I did not hide from myself that as the days went by, marked,
for me, only by the lighting and darkening of my jackdaw's entrance
above, many things would certainly be happening outside. For one
thing, I was a prominent ratepayer, and the cleaning and lighting
taxes, as well as the school and road rates for the parishes of
Breckonside and Over Breckonton, would be coming due. If for nothing
else, they would be sure to hunt me up to pay them. For, as I had
appealed against them all--on principle--Joe would not be able to
settle them without me. He would have done it if he could, having no
"fight" in him--that boy taking after his mother--but my lawyer would
see him further first, being a minor. I could trust Mr. C. P.
Richards--he would not pay a farthing till he had an order under my
hand or a proof of my decease. Yes. They would seek for me. No doubt
of that.

And Elsie? Of course she was not a ratepayer; but--well, if, as was
likely, they had seen her shake out her skirts to trip across a muddy
road they would be just as great fools as myself.

And they were greater--every man of them. I know Breckonside.

Well, now, to join on our doings in the cellar (as it were) to those up
aloft in the front hall, it was about this time that our meals began to
wax irregular. The Breckonside mob, ill led, and incapable of knowing
exactly what it wanted, had come and gone, defeated by the cunning of
Miss Aphra--very clever woman, Miss Aphra--and the cheerful, innocent
brutality of Dr. Hector.

There was still talk about us, no doubt, but desultory--some semblance
of action, too. In fine, little real work was being done, when our
provisions began to get scarce down below in the old stone storehouses
of the monks.

Indeed, so far as I was concerned, I should have starved if Elsie
Stennis, who was still occasionally remembered, had not pushed through
the bolt holes long strips of the home-made loaves with which Mad
Jeremy supplied her. As for water, she had a spoon tied to the end of
the iron rod; and I took it as a babe does pap. It was, I am free to
say, most kindly done. For at no time had she too much for herself,
and though I do not make too much of a thing like that, neither, on the
other hand, do I forget it. After a long, sleepless night of thought,
I resolved that the very next evening I should borrow the iron rod from
Elsie, which had formerly been used as a rake shaft of the bakery
fu