"Did you not hear them coming?"
"I did."
"And yet you did not attempt to escape from them?"
"No, I could not persuade them I was not there save by my utter silence. I allowed them to come too close to leave myself time to escape—besides, I could hardly persuade myself there could be any necessity for so doing."
"It was fortunate it was as it happened afterwards, that you were able to reach the wood, and get out of it unperceived by the mob."
"I should have been in an unfortunate condition had I been in their hands long. A man made of iron would not be able to resist the brutality of those people."
As they were speaking, a gig, with two men, drove up, followed by one on horseback. They stopped at the garden-gate, and then tarried to consult with each other, as they looked at the house.
"What can they want, I wonder?" inquired Henry; "I never saw them before."
"Nor I," said Charles Holland.
"Do you not know them at all?" inquired Varney.