“Generally they do, no doubt, Mark; but you know I told you that the chief at Bow Street said that he had a suspicion that the highway robbers and the house breakers who have been creating so much alarm are the same men.”
“It is curious that they should have happened to light on us, father, if they were intending to break into our house.”
John Thorndyke made no reply, and in a few minutes drove up to the house. Their return, a couple of days before they were expected, caused great satisfaction to Mrs. Cunningham and Millicent. The former, however, had wisely kept from the girl the matter on which she had written to the Squire, and the suspicion she had herself entertained.
“It is very dull without you both,” Millicent said. “I was telling Mrs. Cunningham that I thought it would be a good thing, when you got back, for us two to take a run up to town for a week, just to let you see how dull the place is when two of us are away. You are looking quite serious, uncle. Is anything the matter?”
“Happily nothing is the matter with us, dear, but we have had an adventure, and not a very pleasant one.”
“What was it?” the girl asked.
“If you examine my hat closely, Millicent, it will tell you.”
The girl took up the hat from a chair on which he had put it, and brought it to the light. “There are two holes in it,” she said. “Oh, Guardy, have you been shot at?”
“It looks like it, dear. Two gentlemen highwaymen—at least, that is what I believe they call themselves—asked us pressingly to stop, and as we would not comply with their request, one fired at me, and, as you see, it was an uncommonly good shot. The other was about to fire when Mark's pistol put a stop to him, and his second barrel stopped the fellow who had fired first; he was hit, for we heard him give an exclamation of pain, but before any more shooting could be done he turned and rode off down a narrow lane where we could not follow.”
“And what became of the first?” Millicent asked with open eyes.