My mother returned and spoke some reassuring words to the servants. My father, having made fast the door and extinguished all but one or two of the lights, had gone into a small room on the right of the hall; the crouching figure, still mopping that moisture from its eyes, following him. We could hear them talking there in low tones, my father questioning, the other voice thick and interspersed with short panting grunts. We on the stairs huddled closer together, and, in the darkness, I felt my mother’s arm steal round me and encompass me, so that I was not afraid. Then we waited, while the silence round our frightened whispers thickened and grew heavy till the weight of it seemed to hurt us. At length, out of its depths, there crept to our ears a faint murmur. It gathered strength like the sound of the oncoming of a wave upon a stony shore, until it broke in a Babel of vehement voices just outside. After a few moments, the hubbub ceased, and there came a furious ringing—then angry shouts demanding admittance. Some of the women began to cry. My father came out into the hall, closing the room door behind him, and ordered them to be quiet, so sternly that they were stunned into silence. The furious ringing was repeated; and, this time, threats mingled among the hoarse shouts. My mother’s arm tightened around me, and I could hear the beating of her heart. The voices outside the gate sank into a low confused mumbling. Soon they died away altogether, and the silence flowed back. My father turned up the hall lamp, and stood listening. Suddenly, from the back of the house, rose the noise of a great crashing, followed by oaths and savage laughter. My father rushed forward, but was borne back; and, in an instant, the hall was full of grim, ferocious faces. My father, trembling a little (or else it was the shadow cast by the flickering lamp), and with lips tight pressed, stood confronting them; while we women and children, too scared to even cry, shrank back up the stairs. What followed during the next few moments is, in my memory, only a confused tumult, above which my father’s high, clear tones rise every now and again, entreating, arguing, commanding. I see nothing distinctly until one of the grimmest of the faces thrusts itself before the others, and a voice which, like Aaron’s rod, swallows up all its fellows, says in deep, determined bass, “Coom, we’ve had enow chatter, master. Thee mun give ’un up, or thee mun get out o’ th’ way an’ we’ll search th’ house for oursel’.”