‘I didn’t say it was thieves,’ the man interposed, sullenly; but I took no notice of the muttered remark.
‘If you are afraid to sleep downstairs by yourself,’ I continued, ‘say so; but don’t come alarming your mistress again, in the middle of the night, for I won’t allow it.’
The man slunk back into his room, with a reiteration that he had not been mistaken; and I returned to bed, full of complaints at having been so unnecessarily roused.
‘If this kind of thing goes on,’ I remarked to my wife, ‘I shall regret ever having set eyes on Rushmere. That a pack of silly maid-servants should see a robber in every bush is only to be expected; but how a sensible man like Dawson, and a woman of education like yourself, can permit your imagination to betray you into such foolish fears, is quite past my comprehension.’
Yet, notwithstanding my dose of philosophy, poor Jane looked so pale upon the following morning, that I was fain to devise and carry into execution a little excursion into the neighbouring country before she regained her usual composure.
Some time passed without any further disturbance, and though upon several occasions I blamed myself for having brought a family, used to a populous city like London, to vegetate in so isolated a spot as Rushmere, I had almost forgotten the circumstances that had so much annoyed me.
We had now spent a month in our temporary home. The fields and hedgerows were bright with summer flowers, and the children passed most of their time tumbling amongst the new-mown hay. Janie had once more regained courage to sit by herself in the dusk, and to rest with tolerable security when she went to bed. I was rejoicing in the idea that all the folly that had marred the pleasure of our arrival at Rushmere had died a natural death, when it was vividly and painfully recalled to my mind by its actual recurrence.
Our second girl, a delicate little creature of about six years old, who, since the departure of her nurse, had slept in a cot in the same room as ourselves, woke me up in the middle of the night by exclaiming, in a frightened, plaintive voice, close to my ear,—
‘Papa! papa! do you hear the footsteps? Some one is coming up the stairs!’