“Men! all round the house.” There was a moment of consternation, and then Lew sprang to his feet. “It has come, Bob; the hour has come, sooner than we thought.”
Rob rose too, slowly; an oath, which in this terrible moment affected his mother more than all the rest, came from his lips. “I told you—you would let them take you by surprise.”
“Fool again! I don’t deny it,” the other said, with a sort of gaiety. “Now for your gulley and Eskside, and a run for it. We’ll beat them yet.”
“If they’ve not stopped us up like blind moles,” cried Robbie. “Mother, keep them in parley as long as you can; every moment’s worth an hour. You’ll have to open the door, but not till the very last.”
She answered only with a little movement of her head, and stood looking without a word, while they caught up without another glance at her—Robbie the cloak which he had brought with him, and Lew a loose coat, in which he enveloped himself. Their movements were very quiet, very still, as of men absorbed in what they were doing, thinking of nothing else. They hurried out of the room, Robbie first, leading the way, and his mother’s eyes following him as if they would have burst out of the sockets. He was far too much preoccupied to think of her, to give her even a look. And this was their farewell, and she might never see him more. She stood there motionless, conscious of nothing but that acute and poignant anguish that she had taken her last look of her son, when suddenly the air, which was trembling and quivering with excitement and expectation, like the air that thrills and shimmers over a blazing furnace, was penetrated by the sound for which the whole world seemed to have been waiting—a heavy ominous loud knock at the outer door. Mrs Ogilvy recovered all her faculties in a moment. She went to the open door of the dining-room, where Andrew and Janet, one on the heels of the other, were arriving in commotion, Andrew about to stride with a heavy step to the door. She silenced them, and kept them back with a movement of her hands, stamping her impatient foot at Andrew and his unnecessary haste. She thought it would look like expectation if she responded too soon—and had they not told her to parley, to gain time? She stood at the dining-room door and waited till the summons should be repeated. And after an interval it came again, with a sound of several voices. She put herself in motion now, coming out into the hall, pretending to call upon Andrew, as she would have done in former days if so disturbed. “Bless me!” she cried; “who will that be making such a noise at the door?”
“Will I open it, mem?” Andrew said.
“No, no; let me speak to them first. Who is it?” Mrs Ogilvy said, raising her calm voice; “who is making such a disturbance at my door at this hour of the night?”
“Open in the Queen’s name,” cried somebody outside.
“Ay, that would I willingly,” cried Mrs Ogilvy; “but who are ye that are taking her sacred Majesty’s name? None of her servants, I’m sure, or you would not disturb an honest family at this hour of the night.”
“Open to the police, at your peril,” said another voice.