He began with the little rooms over the hall:  a bedstead stood in one; in another was a table all piled with linen a third had its floor covered with early autumn fruit, ready for preserving.  He struck on a panel or two as he went, for form’s sake.

As he came out again he turned savagely on the informer.

“It is damned nonsense,” he said; “the fellow’s not here at all.  I told you he’d have gone back to the hills.”

The man looked up at him with a furtive kind of sneer in his face; he, too, was angry enough; the loss of the priest meant the loss of the heavy reward.

“We have not searched a room rightly yet, sir,” he snarled.  “There are a hundred places—­”

“Not searched!  You villain!  Why, what would you have?”

“It’s not the manner I’ve done it before, sir.  A pike-thrust here, and a blow there—­”

“I tell you I will not have the house injured!  Mistress Manners—­”

“Very good, sir.  Your honour is the magistrate....  I am not.”

The old man’s temper boiled over.  They were passing at that instant a half-open door, and within he could see a bare little parlour, with linen presses against the walls.  It would not hide a cat.

“Do you search, then!” he cried.  “Here, then, and I will watch you!  But you shall pay for any wanton damage, I tell you.”

The man shrugged his shoulders.

“What is the use, then—­” he began.

“Bah! search, then, as you will.  I will pay.”

* * * * *

The noise from the hall had ceased altogether as the four men went into the parlour.  It was a plain little room, with an open fireplace and a great settle beside it.  There were hangings here and there.  That over the hearth presented Icarus in the chariot of the sun.  It seemed such a place as that in which two lovers might sit and talk together at sunset....  In one place hung a dark oil painting.

The old man went across to the window and stared out.

The sun was up by now, far away out of sight; and the whole sunlit valley lay stretched beneath beyond the slopes that led down to Padley.  The loathing for his work rose up again and choked him—­this desperate bullying of a few women; and all to no purpose.  He stared out at the horses beneath, and at the couple of men gossiping together at their heads....  He determined to see Mistress Manners again alone presently, when she should be recovered, and have a word with her in private.  She would forgive him, perhaps, when she saw him ride off empty-handed, as he most certainly meant to do.

He thought, too, of other things, this old man, as he stood, with his shoulders squared, resolute in his lack of attention to the mean work going on behind him....  He wondered whether God were angry or no.  Whether this kind of duty were according to His will.  Down there was Padley, where he had heard mass in the old days; Padley, where the two priests had been taken a few weeks ago.  He wondered—­