done, no man fought so hard, or with such thorough enjoyment, as Stokoe.  “Surrender” was a part of the great game that he did not understand; he was not of the stuff that deals in “regrettable incidents.”  At Preston that day, when all was done, there stood King George’s men on either side, as well as in his front; in his rear a high stone wall, even to a man less heavily handicapped than he by weight, an obstacle almost insurmountable.  But his horse was good—­Stokoe’s horses had to be good—­and it knew its master.  Never hitherto had the pair refused any jump, and they were not like to begin now.  With a rush and a scramble, and the clatter of four good feet against the stone coping, they were over; over and away, galloping hard for the North Countrie, the free wind whistling past their ears as they sped, Stokoe throwing up his arm and giving a mocking cheer as each ineffective volley of musketry from the troops spluttered behind him; and the great roan horse snatched at his bit, and snorted with excitement.

Yes, that part of it was worth living for, and the blood danced in the veins of horse and man while the chase lasted.  But what of it when once more the hills of Northumberland were regained, when the great moors that lay grim and frowning under the dark November skies were again beneath his horse’s feet?  It was a different matter then, for the hue and cry was out, and the earths all stopped against this gallant fox.  Chesterwood was closed to him, no friend dared openly give him shelter.

“He had fled, had got clear away to France,” was the story they gave out.  But Frank Stokoe all the time lay snug and safe in hiding, not so very far from his own peel tower.  And he was one of those who, disguised—­perhaps in his case not very effectually—­ventured to London, intent on bringing back the body of their chief, that it might lie at rest in the grave where sleep the fathers of that noble race.

There, in London, Frank narrowly escaped being taken.  As it chanced, at that time an Italian bravo was earning for himself an unsavoury notoriety by going about boastfully challenging all England to stand up before him to prove who was the better man.  He would mark his man, pick a quarrel with him, and the result was always the same.  The Italian’s trick of fence was deadly, his wrist a wrist of steel.  None yet had been able to stand long before him; not one had got inside his guard.

As he walked once near Leicester Field in the dusk of an evening, Stokoe’s great figure caught the eye of this little Italian, in whose mind suddenly arose the irresistible longing to bring this huge bulk toppling to earth.  That would be something not unworth boasting about—­that he, a sort of eighteenth-century David, should slay this modern Goliath.