"There! They've begun to reward themselves," said Queenie, as a stone came through one of the windows.
Mr. Wedmore was furious. He saw the mistake he had made, but he would not own it. Putting strong constraint upon himself, he assumed a gay geniality of manner which his looks belied, and boldly advanced to the door. But Mrs. Wedmore flung her arms round her husband in a capacious embrace, dragging him backward with an energy there was no use resisting.
"No, no, no, George! I won't have you expose yourself to those horrid roughs! Don't open the door, Bartram! Put up the bolt!"
"Nonsense! Nonsense, my dear!" retorted Mr. Wedmore, who was, perhaps, not so unwilling to be saved from the howling mob as he wished to appear. "It's only good-humored fun—of a rough sort, perhaps, but quite harmless. It's some mischievous boy who threw the stone. But, of course, they must go round to the back."
"Cook won't dare to open the door to 'em, sir," said the butler.
The situation was becoming serious. There was no denying that the house was besieged. Mrs. Wedmore began to feel like a châtelaine of the Cavalier party, with the Roundhead army at the doors clamoring for her husband's blood. The cries of the villagers were becoming more derisive.
As a happy thought, Mrs. Wedmore suggested haranguing the mob from an upper window. This course seemed rather ignominious, but prudence decided in its favor.
There was a rush upstairs, and Mr. Wedmore, followed by all the ladies, flung himself into the bathroom and threw up the window.
It was not at all the sort of thing that merry squire of the olden times might have been expected to do. In fact, as Doreen remarked, there were no bathrooms in the olden time to harangue a mob from. But Mr. Wedmore's medieval ardor being damped, he submitted to circumstances with fortitude.
"Yah! There 'e is at last!" "'Ow are you, old un?" "Don't put your nose out too fur this cold night!"