In this dilemma, it was arranged that Lewis should wait in the passage, and that Grimaldi should creep softly up stairs, and reconnoitre the enemy from the window above—a plan which Lewis thought much more feasible, and which was at once put in execution.
While these deliberations were going forward, the knocking had continued without cessation, and it now began to assume a subdued and confidential tone, which, instead of subduing their alarm, rather tended to increase it. Armed with the two pistols and the broadsword, and looking much more like Robinson Crusoe than either the "Shipwrecked Mariner," or the "Little Clown," Grimaldi thrust his head out of the window, and hailed the people below, in a voice which, between agitation and a desire to communicate to the neighbours the full benefit of the discussion, was something akin to that in which his well-known cry of "Here we are!" afterwards acquired so much popularity.
It was between two and three o'clock in the morning,—the day was breaking, and the light increasing fast. He could descry two men at the door heavily laden with something, but with what he could not discern. All he could see was, that it was not fire-arms, and that was a comfort.
"Hollo! hollo!" he shouted out of the window, displaying the brace of pistols and the broadsword to the best advantage; "what's the matter there?" Here he coughed very fiercely, and again demanded what was the matter.
"Why, sir," replied one of the men, looking up, and holding on his hat as he did so, "we thought we should never wake ye."
"And what did you want to wake me for?" was the natural inquiry.
"Why, the property!" replied both the men at the same time.
"The what?" inquired the master of the house, taking in the broadsword, and putting the pistols on the window-sill.
"The property!" replied the two men, pettishly. "Here we have been a-looking over the field all this time, and have found the property."
No further conversation was necessary. The door was opened, and the watchmen entered bearing two large sacks, which they had stumbled on in the field, and the females, falling on their knees before them, began dragging forth their contents in an agony of impatience. After a lengthened examination, it was found that the sacks contained every article that had been taken away; that not one, however trifling, was missing; and that they had come into possession, besides, of a complete and extensive assortment of house-breaking tools, including centre-bit, picklock, keys, screws, dark lanterns, a file, and a crow-bar. The watchmen were dismissed with ten shillings, and as many thousand thanks, and the party breakfasted in a much more comfortable manner than that in which they had supped on the previous night.