All who knew her were fully aware that she was quite capable of shooting down any person found in the act of robbing her, and that she always kept loaded pistols in her room in readiness.

There was a story whispered about, of her having locked up in one of her rooms a servant whom she had caught pilfering, and it was said that she had starved him to death amid the plunder he had gathered, and had afterwards had his body flung without burial into the river.
Whether there was more than rumour in such a gruesome tale none could now say, but it had long become an acknowledged axiom that Lady Scrope's goods had better be let alone.
Twice had the boat been laden and returned, for all concerned worked with a will, and now all had been removed from the house which it was possible to take on such short notice and in such a fashion.

The fire was surging furiously across the road, and in more than one place it had leaped the street, and the other side, the south side, was now burning as fiercely as the northern.

Dorcas had been dispatched to call down Lady Scrope, for her father reckoned that in ten minutes more the house would be actually engulfed in the oncoming mass of flames.

And now the girl hurried up to them, her face blanched with terror.
"She will not come, father; she will not come.