In those days people were not very
squeamish, and Stokoe seems to have gone quietly back to bed without
greatly troubling himself about the slain robber; but the man's friends
must have stolen back during the night, for in a copse near by, in a
shallow grave hastily scooped out of the frozen earth, the dead body was
found next day.
It is almost needless to say that Frank Stokoe was of those who would be
certain to concern themselves in an enterprise such as the Rising of
1715. His sympathies were entirely with the Stuart, and against the
Hanoverian King. Moreover, though he owned his peel tower and the land
surrounding it, he was yet, as regards other land, a tenant of the Earl
of Derwentwater, as well as being a devoted admirer of that nobleman.
Naturally, therefore, when the Earl took the field, Stokoe followed him;
and had all been of his frame of mind, there had been no ignominious
surrender at Preston. Whilst fighting was to be 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.
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