"Ay, lady, that is what brings us," replied the justice. "I have orders from Hull to inquire into that affair, and to search your house for the bloody-minded malignants here concealed, who slaughtered like lambs a number of godly men even within sight of your door, and then took refuge in Langley Hall. I must search, lady--I must search."
"Search, if you will, from the cellars to the garret," replied Lady Margaret; "but the story told me by those who did take refuge here was very different, Master Shortcoat. They said that, peaceably passing along the country, they were attacked by a body of bloody-minded factious villains, who slaughtered some of them, and drove the rest in here, where finding some of their companions waiting for them, they issued forth again to punish the knaves who had assailed them."
"It's all a lie, good woman!" exclaimed an officer of militia. "But who are these girls? for there was a woman amongst them."
"You are a rude companion, sirrah!" answered Lady Margaret. "These ladies are of my own family--this one my niece, Mistress Anne Walton; and this my cousin, Mistress Arabella Langley."
"Come, come," said another, interposing; "we are wasting time, while perhaps those we seek may be escaping. It is not women we want, but men. Search the house, Master Justice, with all speed. I will go one way with two or three of the men--go you another with the rest."
"Stay, stay!" said Justice Shortcoat; "you are too quick: we cannot make due inquest if you interrupt us so. Lady, I require to know who were the persons in your house who went forth to assist the malignants on the night of Wednesday last."
"Why, I have told you already, Master Shortcoat. You must be hard of hearing. Did I not say they were friends of theirs who were waiting here for them? In these times, when subjects are governors and servants masters, how can I keep out any one who chooses to come in? That very night one of the men swam the moat, and let down the drawbridge for himself. How am I to stop such things? If I could, I would keep every party out that appeared with more than two, be they who they might. I seek but to live a peaceable life; but you, and others like you, break in at all hours, disturbing my quiet. Out upon you all! Search, search where you will! You can find nothing here but myself and my own people."
"Well, we will search, lady," replied the officer of militia who had spoken before. "Come, worshipful Master Shortcoat--let us not waste more time;" and seizing him by the arm, he dragged rather than led him away.
The moment he was gone, Lady Margaret whispered in Annie Walton's ear, "Quick, Annie! run to the room where all the maidens sit, and tell them, if asked what mean the clothes in the earl's chamber and the blood upon them, to say that they are those of one who was killed the other night, and that the body was carried away by his comrades. I will go to the men's hall and to the kitchen, and do the same. You hear, sweet Arrah? such must be our tale;" and away the old lady went. But she found the task of communicating this hint somewhat more difficult than she had expected, for the hall was half full of the parliamentary militia, and she had to send her servants to different parts of the house, one upon one pretence, and another upon another, before she could find the opportunity of speaking with them in private.
In the mean while she heard with a smile the feet of the justice and his companions running through all the rooms and passages of this wide, rambling pile of building, except those which, separated from the rest by stone partitions, and forming a sort of house within the house, could only be discovered either by one already acquainted with some of the several entrances, or by the line and rule of the architect. She had just done instructing her servants, not having omitted, as she thought, one of the household, when feet were heard descending the principal stairs, and the perquisitions were commenced in that wing of the hall in which the room inhabited by the Earl of Beverley was situated.