The Woodman. G. P. R. James

got him out, either into these houses, or into the wood, as we were coming up the valley."

      "Search the houses," said the commander; "and send a troop up the road to the wood."

      "It is done, it is done," cried the other. "The men are furious; for they will lose all share of the reward. By Satan and all his imps," he added, "I believe they have set fire to the houses."

      "This will come to a serious reckoning," said the commander gravely. "Try and stop the fire there. Call off the men;" and, as promptly as might be, he did all that was possible to remedy the evil that had been done. As every one who has had the command of rude men must know, however, there are times when they become perfectly ungovernable. Such was the case at present. They were an irregular and ruthless body who now surrounded the abbey; and without attending to the orders they received, to the remonstrances or even to the threats of their commander, they set fire to every building on the right hand side of the green. Nor would the others have escaped the same fate, nor the abbey itself have been left unassailed, had not the officer, as a last resource, commanded the trumpets to sound, and ordered all who could be gathered together to march up the road, for the purpose of searching the forest.

      The stragglers followed, as soon as they found that the principal part of the troop had left them; and the whole force, except three or four, who remained to complete the pillage of the priest's house, marched slowly up, till a halt was sounded under the first trees of the wood.

      There, however, the officer in command selected some twenty men from his band, and rode back to the abbey green. The rest of the men halted where they stood, inquiring of each other what could be the meaning of this proceeding.

      He gave no explanation even when he returned; but the next morning, at daybreak, three bodies were found hanging by the neck from poles stuck into the thatch of one of the unconsumed cottages.