outside the gate sank into a low confused mumbling. Soon they
died away altogether, and the silence flowed back.

My father turned up the hall lamp, and stood listening.

Suddenly, from the back of the house, rose the noise of a great crashing,
followed by oaths and savage laughter.

My father rushed forward, but was borne back; and, in an instant, the
hall was full of grim, ferocious faces. My father, trembling a little
(or else it was the shadow cast by the flickering lamp), and with lips
tight pressed, stood confronting them; while we women and children, too
scared to even cry, shrank back up the stairs.

What followed during the next few moments is, in my memory, only a
confused tumult, above which my father's high, clear tones rise every now
and again, entreating, arguing, commanding. I see nothing distinctly
until one of the grimmest of the faces thrusts itself before the others,
and a voice which, like Aaron's rod, swallows up all its fellows, says in
deep, determined bass, "Coom, we've had enow chatter, master. Thee mun
give 'un up, or thee mun get out o' th' way an' we'll search th' house
for oursel'."

Then a light flashed into my father's eyes that kindled something inside
me, so that the fear went out of me, and I struggled to free myself from
my mother's arm, for the desire stirred me to fling myself down upon the
grimy faces below, and beat and stamp upon them with my fists. Springing
across the hall, he snatched from the wall where it hung an ancient club,
part of a trophy of old armour, and planting his back against the door
through which they would have to pass, he shouted, "Then be damned to you
all, he's in this room! Come and fetch him out."

(I recollect that speech well. I puzzled over it, even at that time,
excited though I was. I had always been told that only low, wicked
people ever used the word "damn," and I tried to reconcile things, and
failed.)

The men drew back and muttered among themselves. It was an ugly-looking
weapon, studded with iron spikes. My father held it secured to his hand
by a chain, and there was an ugly look about him also, now, that gave his
face a strange likeness to the dark faces round him.

But my mother grew very white and cold, and underneath her breath she
kept crying, "Oh, will they never come--will they never come?" and a
cricket somewhere about the house began to chirp.

Then all at once, without a word, my mother flew down the stairs, and
pa