“Do not call them now, at all events,” said Mr Nugent. “We will ask them to-morrow what they thought about the matter. What could have exploded those old guns?”
Julian and Digby would have been fully satisfied had they witnessed the commotion the explosion of the guns created in the quiet old town. Half the male population, and even some of the women, turned out of their beds and ran to the fort. Some thought the Russians or the French, or some other enemies of England, had come, and were firing away at the fort—a very useless proceeding it would have been, considering that the poor old fort could not fire at them. Others, not aware of this latter fact, thought that a body of artillery had suddenly been transported there, and that they were defending the place in the most desperate manner. The braver men who thought this ran to assist them; and others, and some of the women, ran out of the town to be further from danger.
However, a very large number of people collected in the fort, everybody asking questions, and nobody being able to give a satisfactory reply.
Some asserted that a dozen guns had been fired off; others even a greater number. One thing only was evident, when lanterns were brought to make an examination—that two of the old guns had burst, and had scattered their fragments far and wide around.
“Some malicious people must have done it,” observed the worthy mayor, who did not at all like being thus rudely summoned out of his bed, as he had been by the explosion. “High treason, rebellion, and—and—” (he could not find a third word of sufficient force to express his feelings) “has been committed in this loyal, respectable, quiet town, and the villainous perpetrators of the atrocious deed must be brought to condign punishment.”
It was a pity Julian and Digby could not hear these expressions.
Some people in the crowd had their own opinions on the subject. Mr Simson was there, and he picked up a thick stick, with a thicker head, and kept it.
The coastguard men thought the smugglers had done it, but with what object they could not divine. Some wiseacres thought that the guns had gone off of themselves; others, that Dame Marlow, whose fame had long been great at Osberton, had had a hand in the work. However, though everybody looked about and talked, they were not much the wiser, and at length they retired to their homes, and the old fort was allowed to sleep on with its usual tranquillity.