kept pace with them and halted a furlong behind, climbing the
hedges and waiting to see the fun. But Steens itself stood apparently
desolate. In the fields around not even a stray group of sightseers could
Sir John perceive. It puzzled him completely; and the Sheriff, after
demanding in gently satirical accents to be shown the whereabouts of the
promised mob, had somewhat pointedly ignored him and consulted with the
sergeant alone.

The soldiers charged well, holding their fire. And, again to Sir John's
flat astonishment, no volley met them. They reached the foot of the
barricade and began demolishing it, dragging out the furze-faggots,
tearing a passage through.

In less than a minute they had laid open a gap: and with that the mystery
was clear. Leaping through, they found themselves in the midst of a
cheerful and entirely passive crowd, lining the road in front of Steens'
wall, the gate of which had been closed with large baulks of timber from
the mines. The crowd numbered perhaps three hundred, and included men,
women and children. Groups of them squatted by the roadside or sat in the
hedges, quietly sharing out their breakfasts; and one and all, as the
Sheriff rode in through the gap on his grey horse, greeted him with
laughter, as a set of children might laugh over an innocent practical
joke.

Sir James lost his temper, and roughly ordered his soldiers to clear the
road. There was no difficulty about this. The men withdrew most
obligingly, collecting their breakfast cans, helping their wives and
children over the hedge, laughing all the while. They scattered over the
fields in front of Steens and sat down again in groups to watch.
To disperse them farther with his handful of soldiers would be waste of
time, and the Sheriff turned his attention to the house, which faced him
grim and silent.

He rode up to the gate, and rattling upon it with his riding-whip,
demanded admittance. There was no answer. He looked along the wall to
right and left, and for the first time began to understand that the place
was strong and his force perhaps inadequate. He could not retreat in the
face of ridicule, and so--to gain time--ordered the barricade to be burnt.

The soldiers set to work, and soon had two fine bonfires blazing, and the
Sheriff withdrew up the road with his sergeant to consult Sir John, the
pair of them a trifle shamefacedly. Sir James tried to ease his own smart
by an innuendo or two on the lawles