She lay back, pretending to doze, but really watching the first movement of curtain or tablecloth, to pounce upon the sinners. The sinners, however, were not there to be pounced upon. After a few moments Mrs. Rayburn's pretended doze turned into a real one, and she filled the cosy room with portentous snores. She woke up suddenly in a fright. "Bother those boys!" she exclaimed. "Where on earth are they hid?" And, getting up, she began a systematic search. They were not in her rooms, she soon discovered, so she went out into the hall and began poking about behind the suits of armour that stood like ghostly sentinels round the walls. She was thus engaged when Jacob drove up to the porch. The hall being lighted, though but dimly, he saw the housekeeper at her queer employment. "I had to wait some time, mum, for the parcel was sent by goods train. Whatever are you doing, Mrs. Rayburn, mum?" "Looking for those two young pests, if you must know. I locked Frank up—the young one escaped me—just to keep them out of mischief while I was busy, and now, lo and behold! They're both gone." "When did you lock the boy up, mum?" "At once; just after the fire was put out." "Well, then," said Jacob, excitedly, "the boys got out somehow, for I overtook them halfway to the north gate. I bid them run back, and I made sure they would, but they did not, I suppose. The big fish-ponds are close to the approach, just a bit to the left, and if the boys went near the ponds, they're both drowned long ago. 'Tis a dangerous place for children; keeper's two were drowned there two years ago. Well, these two were pretty boys; 'tis a pity of them." Jacob kept on talking in this disjointed way, because he did not want to be questioned and have to say that he had given the boys a lift. In a simple, cunning way, he thought that if he frightened Mrs. Rayburn sufficiently, she would not be able to question him effectually. He succeeded, but, like many another, perhaps he wished he had not succeeded quite so well, for Mrs. Rayburn flopped down upon a hard and narrow hall bench with such reckless speed that she tumbled off at the other side, and knocked down one of the ghostly sentinels, whereupon the armour all fell apart with a tremendous clatter, and Mrs. Rayburn set up a doleful screaming which echoed through the old hall, and brought people running from every direction. Even Lord Beaucourt sent to inquire what was the matter, and received for reply a message stating that Jacob had brought word that the two little Rayburns had been drowned in the fish-ponds. On this the earl abandoned his dessert and came himself to the hall, where his presence produced silence, except for Mrs. Rayburn's cries. "Where is this man Jacob?" said Lord Beaucourt. "Oh—well, Jacob, it is too dark for you to have seen into the ponds. What makes you so sure that the boys fell in?"