Then, urged with the desire to get back, or the curiosity to know whether they would really be admitted beyond the closely shut door of the Manor House, they moved on more quickly up the narrow pathway which lay most directly in a line with it. Presently, they perceived a man hurrying towards them, with a frightened and bewildered air. On coming closer, they recognised the hated bailiff Rogers—he was one whose manners, though smooth and oily to his superiors, were, to his inferiors, blustering and loud; not indeed the off-hand manner which often accompanies and conceals a good and kindly heart, but rather a studied recklessness of wounding the feelings of others, a total forgetfulness of the circumstances and tempers of those dependent on him, to whom a kind word would have cost him nothing. Alas, since our feelings are so finely tuned, why are we not more careful how we play on those of others. But Rogers found that this deliberate carelessness of offence, was, with the timid, a skilful weapon, for it made them fear him, and he rejoiced in the influence this fear gave to him. He forgot in the day of power, how little substance it possesses, or that the sway of tyranny bears in itself the elements of decay, and must crumble away before the force of circumstances.
He was evidently at that moment feeling at a disadvantage. His thin, lanky figure hastily attired, looked not half so important as usual, and he was trembling within with agitation or cold.
The whole party stopped; and the eldest of the young men, whose countenance was very far from prepossessing, drawing the bailiff aside, said, with a low, chuckling kind of laugh—
"Are you going down to the village, sir?"
"Yes," replied Rogers, "I have not come from it very long, and only just stepped back to the Manor. But why do you ask?"
"Because, if you take my advice, you'll keep as clear of it as you can, for the men are hot, and you know, sir," he added, with a low laugh, "they aint all on em very particlar friends o'yourn. I heard words spoke to-night, as may be you would not like."
"I must go, however," replied Rogers, with a shaky attempt to look swaggering, "and I should like to see what the cowards dare do."
"I tell you ye'd better not," said the young man, decisively, "but I've given my warning, I heard some one say, it was very hard if one life was not lost in the bustle to-night—though I do not like peaching, but I owe you a good turn for sending Sally Lyn and her old sick father out of their cottage, that cold Christmas night, at my asking," he added, with a bitter laugh.
Rogers did not look particularly obliged by this grateful reminder, that he had once lent himself to his revenge at an easy bribe. As the mingled smoke and flame rose in columns of awful majesty, like the workings of a supernatural power, till he felt sickened at the sight, he would have given a great deal could the young man have recalled one single act of disinterested mercy.
"Yet I must go," he said, at length, "I cannot help it."