“Captain, dear,” said Nanny to Frank, as he passed her one morning on his way to the stables, “you may just bid your men stand at ease, if you mean to stay at Calbury; there will be no row here. It’s the coast you must look to! Last night some strangers came into my brother’s with two of the Rusbrook men, who fit agen the ’Stabulary t’other day, and they were talking how they had managed finely, and frightened you all so, that you dare not move a foot from home. Dare not! the blackguards! As if they knew the soul of a jintleman soldier. And then they cast up, that they should have it all their own way where they were going, for that the whole county was ready to join them,—let alone quite a raal army of smugglers. Them’s a bad set, my dear captain,—particular bad,—they wouldn’t drink none, but seemed to think only of killing and plundering; and when my brother came in, they was as hush! They’d talk afore me, a poor old blind body, as they thought couldn’t move off my settle without help, but they wouldn’t open their ’tato traps afore him. Publicans must look to their licence, says they! you’ll see that afore long there will be an outbreak towards the coast. One rascal said roundly, ‘We’ll give ’em some bonfires before the fifth of November this year.’” These indications of the popular feeling were further accompanied by acts of incendiarism. There were frequent alarms of fire at night, which increased in number as the end of the month approached. With regard to these, however, Warenne remarked, that though some had been caused by the private malice of individuals, yet that, generally speaking, it was an haulm stack, or a parcel of straw, or a rick, which lay far from any farm buildings that was set fire to; from whence he was the rather inclined to give credit to Nanny Rudd’s conjectures, that the demonstrations in the neighbourhood of Calbury were solely with the view of occupying the attention of the military, and diverting it from the real point of danger. CHAPTER X. Give good hearing to those that give the first information in business, and rather direct them in the beginning, than interrupt them in the continuance of their speeches; for he that is put out of his own order will go forward and backward, and be more tedious while he waits upon his memory, than he could have been if he had gone on his own course—LORD BACON. Affairs remained in this unpleasant state until the evening of the 30th of October, when between seven and eight o’clock a man on a jaded horse, and covered with mud, galloped up to the door of Warenne’s lodging. He hastily ascertained from the servant that his master was within; threw the rein to him, and dashed up the stairs. It was Nicholas. “Warenne,” cried he, as soon as he entered the room, “you must be off, and quickly, if you wish to save Fisherton. It will be attacked to-morrow night by a large body of men, and sacked and burnt, if you are not there to prevent it.”