hey've seen you, and heard
Bone'm,--and probably heard too every word you said to Trumbull."

He then got his hat and the short, thick stick of which he had
spoken, and turning the key of the door, put it in his pocket. Then
the two friends went round by the kitchen garden, and so through to
the orchard, and down to the churchyard gate. Hitherto they had seen
nothing, and heard nothing, and Fenwick was sure that the men had
made their way through the churchyard to the village.

"But they may come back," said Gilmore.

"I'll be about if they do," said the parson.

"What is one against three? You had better let me stay."

Fenwick laughed at this, saying that it would be quite as rational to
propose that they should keep watch every night.

"But, hark!" said the Squire, with a mind evidently perturbed.

"Don't you be alarmed about us," said the parson.

"If anything should happen to Mary Lowther!"

"That, no doubt, is matter of anxiety, to which may, perhaps, be
added some trifle of additional feeling on the score of Janet and the
children. But I'll do my best. If the women knew that you and I were
patrolling the place, they'd be frightened out of their wits."

Then Gilmore, who never liked that there should be a laugh against
himself, took his leave and walked home across the fields. Fenwick
passed up through the garden, and, when he was near the terrace which
ran along the garden front of the house, he thought that he heard
a voice. He stood under the shade of a wall dark with ivy, and
distinctly heard whispering on the other side of it. As far as he
could tell there were the voices of more than two men. He wished now
that he had kept Gilmore with him,--not that he was personally afraid
of the trespassers, for his courage was of that steady settled kind
which enables the possessor to remember that men who are doing deeds
of darkness are ever afraid of those whom they are injuring; but had
there been an ally with him his prospect of catching one or more of
the ruffians would have been greatly increased. Standing where he was
he would probably be able to interrupt them, should they attempt to
enter the house; but in the mean time they might be stripping his
fruit from the wall. They were certainly, at present, in the kitchen
garden, and he was not minded to leave them there at such work as
they might have in hand. Having paused to think of this, he crept
along under the wall, close to the house, towards the pass