‘Good be with us! what’s that?’ cried Rob, who was so much startled, that for the moment the shock almost sobered him; the more so as he saw in the faces of his family an unmistakeable evidence that the noise concerned himself. A sudden remembrance of the Rantan frolics, in which he had joined himself when a younger, better man, a sudden horror of shame and indignation rushed down upon him, and for a moment choked his breath. He sat silent, panting, the excitement of drink in his eyes, at that moment almost like the dark, handsome suitor who had wooed pretty Jenny in her girlish days. And now the clamour had turned into the lane, and they could hear the hooting and laughing of the lads--Rob could hear his own name in shouts, groans, and hisses, accompanied by such opprobrious titles as village wit could furnish. It was too much; the small amount of reason he had left combined with his drunkenness to urge him to resist; with a sudden, fierce movement, he flung himself from his seat, and rushed to the door, which he banged behind his back. The sound of the clamour was increased and yet interrupted by the noise of the different tumult which now broke upon its course--the noise of a scuffle, of blows, of hasty warfare, a confusion of steps and voices .... then, a fall. And in an instant, overcome by a sudden terror that would not allow even her pride to keep her still, poor Jenny flung the door open as wide as it would go, and stood before her adversaries on the threshold of her house. She stood there, a slight figure in the summer evening light, and the respect in which she was always held imposed a silence that was deep and universal, and that fell on the motley crowd with a sudden calm. They had another and graver cause for silence; a fear of consequences was rising in their hearts, for there in the lane, a prostrate, motionless figure, a young man lay with his head in pools of blood. ‘Ye needn’t fear, missus,’ cried our old acquaintance Bill, recovering first from the panic of the crowd; ‘there’s not so much harm done as ye might go to think; these young uns are tough, and he’ll get up again. It is Tim Nicol--poor Tim, as ye know well--he’d come down to try an’ turn t’ lads away--an’ Rob he supposed he was doin’ harm, it’s like, for he caught up a clatch o’ wood, an’ made at him. Ye’ll let him be brought into your house for a bit; Rob has got off, an’ he’s not like to come back.’