"Hello!" exclaimed Stanhope suddenly raising his hand. "What's that?"
Varney listened. "Men's voices," he said slowly.
The door flew open and a man whose ordinary impassivity was touched with a pleasurable excitement stood on the threshold.
"If you please, sir, there's some rough-looking men just sneaked up on the lawn. Ten or twelve—sort of a mob-like, Hi should say—"
"What do they want?" demanded Stanhope in a high voice.
"No good, sir, I'm thinking," said the servant shaking his head. "I was at an upstairs window and saw 'em come sneaking up one by one, hentering at different places. I made a noise not honlike the click of a 'ammer of a gun, and they took alarm and scattered back. But they hain't gone away, sir. Not by a long shot they hain't."
Henry's master leaned against his handsome writing table, his face white as a sheet. It appeared to be a moment when quick action was rather important.
"They'll try the bell first," said Varney. "Lock all the doors and windows downstairs, my man. Quick! When they ring, open a window upstairs, and ask what they want."
Henry recognized the note of competent authority. He assumed, anyway, that it was the strange gentleman's quarrel they had so fortunately been let into, and it was only fair that he should manage it. "Very good, sir," he said and flew.
"But I'm afraid," added Varney to Stanhope, "there is no doubt what they want."