Mr. Audrey had bitten his nails a while as he listened to this, and then had suddenly consented.  The plan suggested was simple enough.  One little troop should ride to Padley, gathering reinforcements on the way, and another on foot should set out for the shepherd’s hut.  Then, if the priest should be gone, this second party should come on towards Padley immediately and join forces with the riders.

All this had been done, and the mounted company, led by the magistrate himself, had come up from the valley in time to see the signalling from the heights (contrived by the showing of lights now and again), which indicated that the priest was moving in the direction that had been expected, and that one man at least was on his track.  They had waited there, in the valley, till the intermittent signals had reached the level ground and ceased, and had then ridden up cautiously in time to meet the informer’s companion, and to learn that the fugitive had doubled suddenly back towards Booth’s Edge.  There they had waited then, till the dawn was imminent, and, with it, there came the party on foot, as had been arranged; then, all together, numbering about twenty-five men, they had pushed on in the direction of Mistress Manners’ house.

As the house came into view, more than ever Mr. Audrey reproached his evil luck.  Certainly there still were two or three chances to one that no priest would be taken at all; since, first, the man might not be a priest, and next, he might have passed the manor and plunged back again into the hills.  But it was not very pleasant work, this rousing of a house inhabited by a woman for whom the magistrate had very far from unkindly feelings, and on such an errand....  So the informers marvelled at the venom with which Mr. Audrey occasionally whispered at them in the dark.

His heart sank as he caught a glimpse of a light first showing, and then suddenly extinguished, in the windows of the hall, but he was relieved to hear no comment on it from the men who walked by his horse; he even hoped that they had not seen it....  But he must do his duty, he said to himself.

* * * * *

He grew a little warm and impatient when no answer came to the knocking.  He said such play-acting was absurd.  Why did not the man come out courageously and deny that he was a priest?  He would have a far better excuse for letting him go.

“Knock again,” he cried.

And again the thunder rang through the archway, and the summons in the Queen’s name to open.

Then at last a light shone beneath the door. (It was brightening rapidly towards the dawn here in the open air, but within it would still be dark.) Then a voice grumbled within.

“Who is there?”

“Man,” bellowed the magistrate, “open the door and have done with it.  I tell you I am a magistrate!”

There was silence.  Then the voice came again.

“How do I know that you are?”