To the minds of the rabble this magnate represented the tyranny against which their protest was raised. Geoffrey Horner looked on him as a political opponent and a dangerous member of the winning party. The blow was easy to strike. Horner hesitated—at the cross roads of other lives than his own—and held his tongue. The suggestion of the unknown humorist in the crowd commended itself to the more energetic of the party, who immediately turned towards the by-road leading to Dene Hall. The others—the minority—followed as minorities do, because they distrusted themselves. Some one struck up a song with words lately published in the ‘Northern Liberator’ and set to a well-known local air. The shooting party assembled at Dene Hall was still at the dinner table when the malcontents entered the park, and the talk of coverts and guns ceased suddenly at the sound of their rough voices. Sir John Pleydell, an alert man still, despite his grey hair and drawn, careworn face, looked up sharply. He had been sitting silently fingering the stem of his wineglass—a habit of his when the ladies quitted the room—and, although he had shot as well as, perhaps better than, any present, had taken but little part in the conversation. He had, in fact, only half listened, and when a rare smile passed across his grey face it invariably owed its existence to some sally made by his son, Alfred Pleydell, gay, light-hearted, _débonnaire_, at the far end of the table. When Sir John’s thoughtful eyes rested on his motherless son, a dull and suppressed light gleamed momentarily beneath his heavy lids. Superficial observers said that John Pleydell was an ambitious man; ‘not for himself,’ added the few who saw deeper. When his quick mind now took in the import of the sound that broke the outer silence of the night, Sir John’s glance sought his son’s face. In moments of alarm the glance flies to where the heart is. ‘What is that?’ asked Alfred Pleydell, standing up. ‘The Chartists,’ said Sir John. Alfred looked round. He was a soldier, though the ink had hardly dried upon the parchment that made him one—the only soldier in the room. ‘We are eleven here,’ he said, ‘and two men downstairs—some of you fellows have your valets too—say fifteen in all. We cannot stand this, you know.’ As he spoke the first volley of stones crashed through the windows, and the broken glass rattled to the floor behind the shutters. The cries of the ladies in the drawing-room could be heard, and all the men sprang to their feet. With blazing eyes Alfred Pleydell ran to the door, but his father was there before him. ‘Not you,’ said the elder man, quiet but a little paler than usual; ‘I will go and speak to them. They will not dare to touch me. They are probably running away by this time.’