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That night Taffendale had been called into the stables to look at a sickly horse; coming away from the fold in company with his foreman, he heard the uproar which the stang-riders were creating around Cherry-trees. At his side the foreman uttered a sharp exclamation, and turned in the direction of the unholy sound.

"What's that?" asked Taffendale, with a sudden premonition of approaching trouble.

The foreman, an old Martinsthorpe man, made a noise in his throat, which was half a groan and half a laugh.

"I'm afraid they're up to summat down yonder, sir," he answered. "I know what yon row means. They're ridin' t' stang! It's many a year sin' that were done hereabouts. But I know t' sound. It'll be that theer Sal Bennett and her lot."

"But—where?" exclaimed Taffendale. "Where?"

Without further word the foreman climbed the steps of the granary, beneath which he and his master were just then walking, and looked out in the gloom across the darkening surface of the uplands. Taffendale followed him. He knew what the answer to his question would be. Standing at the foreman's side, he, too, gazed at the glare of the rude torches which the stang-riders carried. The points of light whirled and eddied hither and thither, but as the two men watched they became concentrated upon one spot in the darkness.

"They're at Cherry-trees," muttered the foreman. "Cherry-trees!"

Taffendale swore under his breath. He gripped the rail which protected the head of the granary steps, and stared at the yellow patch of light with straining eyes. In the silence of the countryside the blare of the horns and the trumpet, the metallic clatter of the pans and kettles, the insistent thumpthump-thump of the drum, grew louder and louder; his nerves began to grow raw under the irritation.

"If there's anybody at home, there," remarked the foreman, "it'll be a bad job for 'em."

"There's Mrs. Perris there," answered Taffendale.

The foreman drew in his breath with a hissing sound.

"I didn't know, sir," he said quietly. "Well, happen they'll leave her alone, though yon lot o' Sal Bennett's is a wild lot. They'll stick at nowt when they're once stirred up, and—"

"We'd better get the men together and go down," said Taffendale. "There's Mrs. Perris and Tibby Graddige in the house. We can't leave them unprotected. I'll get the men from the pits."

But the foreman laid a hand on his master's arm, as Taffendale turned to hurry down the steps.

"Don't, maister!" he said. "If yon lads from t' quarry meets wi' Martinsthorpers on a 'casion like this, there'll be murder done. Ye know what happens when they meet on ordinary 'casions. Don't, sir!"

"But the women?" exclaimed Taffendale.

The foreman looked out again across the level fields. "Best let yon lot get tired o' shoutin' and rampin' round there," he said. "Then they'll go away. Unless—"

"Unless what?" asked Taffendale.

"Unless," replied the foreman slowly and in a low voice, "unless they come on here, maister. Ye mun excuse me, but they've been talking and gossipin' down in t' village theer about you and Perris's wife, so I understand, and I'm a good deal mistaken if they don't come here."

"I'll make them repent it if they do!" said Taffendale between his teeth. "If they set foot on my land I'll—"

He paused as the foreman uttered a sharp cry, and seizing his master with one hand stretched the other out towards Cherry-trees.

"God!" he shouted, "Fire! Yon's fire!"

Out of the yellow glare which hung about Perris's holding, a shaft of bright flame suddenly shot up towards the stars. Another and another followed it; overhead the sky and the stars were rapidly blotted out by rolling clouds of flame and smoke.

"It's on fire—all t' place is on fire!" cried the foreman.

With a simultaneous impulse he and his master turned and hurried down the steps to the fold. The foreman began to shout loudly for the men and lads who hung about the stables, or lounged in and out of the farmstead kitchen.

"Murder or no murder, we'll have the quarrymen now," said Taffendale. And as the farm men came running up he seized the foremost by his shoulder. "Run to the Limepits and tell them to come. Cherry-trees is on fire!" he shouted. "The rest of you come on with me—come on!"

From the corner of Taffendale's garden a field-path ran straight across country to Cherry-trees; the path by which Taffendale had taken Rhoda Perris home on the occasion of her second visit to him. It crossed two or three widespread fields, and then came to a dip in the land wherein was a thickly-wooded hollow, through which ran a narrow stream. It was in that hollow that Taffendale and Rhoda had confessed their love, and it was there that he and Rhoda now met, as he hurried on at the head of his men. She and Tibby Graddige came panting down the path at one side of the hollow as the party from the Limepits ran down the other; on the little bridge which crossed the stream they encountered; the two women sank against the rails, fighting for breath. And Taffendale, regardless of what his men should see in such light as there was, put his arm round Mrs. Perris and supported her.

"You're not hurt?" he demanded. "They didn't interfere with you?"

Rhoda could only shake her head. Tibby Graddige found her tongue first.

"I dragged her out and away, just i' time, mestur!" she panted. "A minute longer, and they'd ha' been on to us. Howsomiver, we 'scaped 'em. But oh, mestur, they've setten fire to t' place!"

"I know—I know!" answered Taffendale. "You and Mrs. Perris must go on to my house. We'll hurry on to Cherry-trees."

But the foreman made an inarticulate sound of disapproval, and Tibby Graddige spoke again.

"Yell do no good, Mestur Taffendale," she said. "Ye can't save naught, sir. An'—they'll be comin' to your place. I heerd tell o' this, but I never thowt they'd carry it out. Ye'd best go home and see to yer own premises."

"Aye—shoo's reight, sir," counselled the foreman. "We can do no good at Cherry-trees. If they're coming to t' Limepits, we'd best see to our stackyard."

"They'll not dare!" exclaimed Taffendale. "They'll never—"

"Mestur, they'll dare owt!" said Tibby Graddige. "They'll be half-mad wi' drink and glory. It's yon rabble o' Sal Bennett's—theer's a hundred or more on 'em. Go back, mestur, and save yer own bit o' property."

"Aye, let's away back," said the foreman.

Taffendale made no further opposition. He followed his men out of the hollow, still supporting Rhoda, who clung trembling to his arm. At the top of the path the little party turned to look at Cherry-trees, now separated from them by only the hollow and one field. House, barn and stackyard were all blazing merrily, and through the clouds of dun-coloured smoke great flecks of flame and showers of burning sparks flew upward to the blackness above.

"They'll never dare to come to Limepits now," said Taffendale, bending down to Rhoda. "After that," he continued, pointing to the scene of devastation, "after that they'll all be for running away as fast as they can. That means prison for some of them."

But as he spoke, he and those about him became aware that the mob was already quitting Cherry-trees.

The torches came together; the horns and the drum and the tin-pans were sounded with renewed fury; and in the glare of the burning farmstead the watchers saw two straw-stuffed effigies lifted high above the heads of the howling and yelling crowd. Swaying and lurching, they were moved on again—not back to the village, as Taffendale had expected, but along the road which wound round by the fields and the corner of the woods wherein lay Badger's Hollow in the direction of the Limepits. Tibby Graddige uttered a loud exclamation.

"Didn't I tell yer!" she cried. "I said they'd come up to yeer place, Mestur Taffendale. They're i' that condition o' pomp and vanity 'at they care for nowt nor nobody. I know what they're aimin' to do. They mean t' burn t' stuffed images i' front o' yeer house, mestur, and to say t' stang warning."

"Come on, sir, let's get back," said the foreman.

But as they turned to hurry over the fields, the quarrymen came running through the darkness, ten or twelve great fellows, only too eager to come to grips with the mob. They were for crossing the land, and intercepting the stang-riders before they reached the woods. But the foreman, wise in his knowledge, counselled otherwise.

"Keep off comin' to blows wi' 'em!" he said. "I know what they want. Mistress Graddige here's reight. Let 'em come up t' road to t' farm, maister, and let 'em burn t' images and shout t' warning, and then they'll go away satisfied with what they've done. What we want to do is to keep 'em offen t' premises. Theer's five-and-forty cornstacks i' our stackyard, ye know, maister."

Taffendale knew that well enough; he knew also what he had in his granaries, and stables, and barns, and byres, and sties. If the Limepits got on fire thousands of pounds' worth of property would go. And he thought quickly and clearly for the needs of the moment.

"All right," he said sharply. "Quick, lads—back home! We'll surround the place and keep them off. When we get there every man and lad lay hold of a good stick, and don't be afraid to use it if there's any need arises. Now hurry!"

The mob was surging up the lane, more riotous and loud of lung than ever, when Taffendale and his men reached the farmstead. He hurried the two women into the house, and then posted the quarrymen and the farm hands along the front of the garden and entrance to the outbuildings.

"Do naught till I give the word!" he shouted, springing on the horseblock at his front gate in order to overlook his little army. "Keep in the background. If they'll go away quietly when they've finished with their damned ceremonies, let 'em go! But if they try to come in, drive them back and lay on hard."

The mob came along with the rush and roar of a horde of savages. The light from the flaring and guttering torches and naphtha lamps fell full on Taffendale, who remained standing on the horseblock watching his persecutors over a set mouth and folded arms. And as they swept up to his very feet he saw that every man and lad in the crowd either had his face blackened beyond recognition, or was masked by a piece of cloth in which eyelets had been cut. As for the women, they looked more like wild beasts than human beings, and their unbound hair concealed all that was to be seen of their features, save glittering eyes and shining teeth.

A storm of execration and obscene abuse burst over Taffendale as the crowd came to a halt and faced him. It suddenly died down into a low continuous growl as he lifted a hand.

"Not a foot do you set on my property, you scoundrels!" he shouted. "You've done enough harm for one night down yonder, and some of you'll find yourselves in gaol before the week's out. Be off before you get your heads broken."

A further roar of abuse followed Taffendale's admonition, and one of the masked men forced himself to the front and shook his fist at the figure on the horseblock.

"None o' yeer advice!" he shouted, with a foul epithet, at which the crowd burst into a shriek of derisive laughter. "We know what's t' law and what isn't t' law. We're on the public highway, and ye can't put us offen it. We'm boun' to burn t' images o' ye and yer fancy woman afore yer faces—what, lads?"

In the midst of another storm of abuse some hand in the crowd threw a rotten egg at Taffendale with well-directed aim. The egg struck him full on the breast of his buttoned-up coat, burst, and bespattered the coat with its stinking contents. The mob yelled delightedly: Taffendale calmly divested himself of the coat and tossed it over the garden hedge behind him.

"Any more violence and you shall have something to yell for," he said. "I shan't warn you. Keep quiet, men!" he shouted, as some of the lime-burners started forward, cudgels in hand. "Keep quiet, I say! Let them have their play out."

The mob retreated a few paces to the broad strip of grass on the opposite side of the road. To the accompaniment of the blaring horns, the insistent thumping of the drum and beating of the pans and kettles, the leaders made their preparations for burning the stuffed effigies, which still swayed and nodded in ridiculous fashion on the ladder. Some of the men carried bundles of straw; others armfuls of sticks and dry wood; a lad came forward with a tin bottle of paraffin. Facing the horseblock, on which Taffendale kept his position, defiant and watchful, they built up a pyre of straw and wood, on the apex they placed the figures, still tied together at the waists. To the accompaniment of an increased volume of objurgation the fire was lighted, and black smoke and bright flame shot upward above the glow of the lime-pits in the background. And Taffendale, looking round, saw in the windows of his house the white faces of the frightened women, and further away the last dull light of the fire at Cherry-trees—burnt out.

The masked leader who had answered Taffendale's challenge with defiance, sprang upon a heap of stones at the side of the burning effigies. As the flames roared and sputtered upwards he began to shout the words of the doggerel nominy, his followers of the mob dancing and leaping about him and the quivering tongues of red fire—

"Rang a dang-dang! Rang a dang-dang It's not for you nor for me that we ride this stang! But for—"

Taffendale felt a hand pull at his knee. He looked down and saw the foreman's face beneath him, full of anxiety.

"Maister!" he said. "Maister! Look wheer them sparks is flyin'!"

Taffendale glanced at the shower of sparks sailing gaily away before the wind. A south-east breeze had been steadily rising and increasing in force all the evening, and now as the flakes of fire rose from the smoking mass on the roadside it was carrying them across the corner of the garden towards the great stackyard which lay at the side of the farmstead. And, as the foreman had remarked in the hollow, there were in that stackyard five-and-forty stacks of wheat and barley and oats, the yield of the recent harvest. Taffendale, a wealthy man, had no need to thrash his corn, as most farmers did—almost as soon as it was got from the land. He could afford to keep it, and keep it for months he always did. No thrashing machine had entered his yard that autumn, nor would enter; there stood the forty-five stacks, stoutly thatched and neatly trimmed, not to be touched before the end of the next spring. And now the sparks were flying that way; as Taffendale and the foreman gazed anxiously into the blackness above them, they saw a scurrying lump of red fall on the roof of the pigeon-cote and continue to glow fiercely and to shoot out tiny sparks of flame over the surrounding tiles.

Taffendale snapped out one fierce exclamation and leaped from the horseblock. He snatched a stick from one of his own farm lads, and waved his arm to his men.

"Out with that fire!" he shouted, above the roar of the flames and the strident voice of the nominy caller. "Quick, men! Out with it! Lay on!"

The lime-burners leaped on the crowd with a fury that sent its members flying as sparrows fly before the sudden onset of a hawk. Up rose the cudgels and down they fell, on heads, arms, shoulders, and on the burning figures and the red mass of straw and wood beneath. But the beating in of the fire only sent a fresh shower of sparks whirling and eddying into the sky, to be seized and carried onward by the wind, and suddenly, high above the yells and oaths of the men and the screeching of the women, they heard the voice of Tibby Graddige screaming from an upper window of the house.

"The stackgarth's on fire! The stackgarth's on fire!"

Taffendale slashed the leader of the mob heavily across the face with his cudgel, saw him sink down into the bonfire like a dead man, and calling on the lime-burners and his farm hands, ran like one demented round the garden and the outbuildings to the stack-yard. And as he turned the last corner he groaned and sobbed from very despair and helplessness because of the sight that met him. Three of the closely ranged stacks were well alight, and blazing furiously, and the wind was carrying the fire amongst the others in wide, curling sheets of flame.

For a moment Taffendale halted, staring at the fierce, never-ceasing onslaught of the terrible force which was tearing its way through his safely-garnered produce. Already the flame was licking a hundred new paths from stack to stack; as the men hastened up, it hastened before them; as they beat it out in one place it burst out anew in another. Before his very eyes the side of a great wheatstack caught and harboured a spark, was transformed into a sheet of glowing red, and sent up a circling pillar of smoke, through which the fire flashed like a live thing. He stood dazed, trembling, utterly bewildered. He saw one of his lads dash out of the stable-yard on his own horse, and go careering madly over the meadows, leaping hedge and ditch as they came, and he knew that he was riding to call the firemen from the market-town, five long miles off. He saw the lime-burners and the farm hands tear down branches of trees wherewith to beat out the spreading flames; he saw the flames set fire to the branches and go on eating their way to the hearts of the stacks. He saw the foreman and others dragging tarpaulins over the sides of the stacks which the fire had not yet reached; the fire swept on and set the tarpaulins alight, and more volumes of black and oily smoke rolled away to mingle with the flames. He saw the men driven back, driven away, until at last, smoke-grimed and singed and sullen they stood gathered about him, silently watching the great glowing mass of straw and grain, worth many a thousand pounds, mould itself into a mighty furnace, the glow of which was spread widely over the sky and was seen for miles upon miles by many a wondering town and village.

"That's done for!" said Taffendale at last. "There's naught can save it. Every stack 'll go. No use any fire brigade coming—they can do naught. But there's one good job—the wind's blowing it away from the buildings and the stables. Some of you go and quiet those horses. Let them out into the garth—they're worse than the women!"

The horses were screaming in the stables, and when the lads released them they rushed out into the homegarth and galloped wildly away across country, to round up at last in a shaking, quivering mass and, closely huddled together, to stare back in wide-eyed affright at the horror which had driven them close to madness. And Taffendale stared, and the men gathered about him stared, and the women, clustering in the farmhouse windows, stared, until in the grey morning the great fire burnt itself out, and where the stacks had stood in their prim neatness and ordered lines, thatched and trimmed and shaven, there was nothing but shapeless heaps of blackened refuse, through which evil tongues of feeble flame darted at every puff of wind.

And in that grey light Taffendale went back to the road outside the farmstead and looked at the place whereat the evil had originated. There were patches of blood on the yellow of the roadway, showing where the lime-burners' sticks had cracked the villagers' crowns. And across the ruins of the bonfire, still tied together and only partially consumed, lay the straw-stuffed effigies which had represented Rhoda and himself.