mitted
themselves, should they (as indeed there was little doubt) have already
effected their entrance.

He found the shutters of one of the principal rooms on the ground-floor
had been opened, and through the aperture he caught the glimpse of a
moving light, which was suddenly obscured. As he was about to enter, the
light again flashed out: he drew back just in time, carefully screened
himself behind the shutter, and, through one of the chinks, observed
what passed within. Opposite to the window was a door which conducted to
the hall and principal staircase; this door was open, and in the hall at
the foot of the stairs Clarence saw two men; one carried a dark lantern,
from which the light proceeded, and some tools, of the nature of which
Clarence was naturally ignorant: this was a middle-sized muscular man,
dressed in the rudest garb of an ordinary labourer; the other was much
taller and younger, and his dress was of a rather less ignoble fashion.

"Hist! hist!" said the taller one, in a low tone, "did you not hear a
noise, Ben?"

"Not a pin fall; but stow your whids, man!"

This was all that Clarence heard in a connected form; but as the
wretches paused, in evident doubt how to proceed, he caught two or three
detached words, which his ingenuity readily formed into sentences. "No,
no! sleeps to the left--old man above--plate chest; we must have the
blunt too. Come, track up the dancers, and douse the glim." And at
the last words the light was extinguished, and Clarence's quick and
thirsting ear just caught their first steps on the stairs; they died
away, and all was hushed.

It had several times occurred to Clarence to rush from his hiding-place,
and fire at the ruffians, and perhaps that measure would have been the
wisest he could have taken; but Clarence had never discharged a pistol
in his life, and he felt, therefore, that his aim must be uncertain
enough to render a favourable position and a short distance essential
requisites. Both these were, at present, denied to him; and although he
saw no weapons about the persons of the villains, yet he imagined they
would not have ventured on so dangerous an expedition without firearms;
and if he failed, as would have been most probable, in his two shots, he
concluded that, though the alarm would be given, his own fate would be
inevitable.

If this was reasoning upon false premises, for housebreakers seldom
or never carry loaded firearms, and never stay for revenge,