Edgar Adelon felt inclined to turn away and go back to the house, when suddenly a loud voice exclaimed, "Now run them back into those dark nooks, and gather round and hear a word or two." Eight or ten men instantly applied themselves to drag the field-pieces into the recesses of the building, and then came forth again, gathering round the person who had spoken. He then placed himself upon a large mass of fallen masonry, and in a loud, clear tone, and with powerful and energetic language, pronounced an harangue, which gave to Edgar Adelon the astounding information that his father was looked upon as the leader of the rash men he saw before him, and their future guide and support in schemes which seemed to his fresh young mind nothing but mete madness. A part, at least, of their plans and purposes was displayed; and with a heart filled with terror and anxiety for his father, Edgar Adelon made his way out of the copse, to return to Brandon House, asking himself how he should act, and resolving to consult the priest as soon as he could see him on the following morning. CHAPTER XV. What a whimsical thing is that strange composition--man. The very elements of his nature war against each other, though bound together by hoops of steel. The spirit and the body are continually at variance, and the activity of the one often renders the other inert. Eda Brandon could not sleep after Edgar Adelon left her; her imagination, ever busy, presented to her continually scenes the most fearful and the most terrible, where the gibbet, and the axe, and the deadly shot were seen and heard; and her uncle's form appeared as a criminal, freed for an hour or two from dark imprisonment, to endure the torture of a public trial. She judged of all she knew as a woman judges: with keen foresight and penetration, but without sufficient experience to make that penetration available. But still her fancy was busy, and it kept her waking. For more than one hour she did not sleep; but still she tried hard to do so, for she proposed to rise early on the following morning, when she knew that those whom she had determined to consult, as to all the questions before her, would be up. But such resolutions are vain. Fatigue and exhaustion imperatively counselled repose; and at length, when her eyes closed, notwithstanding all her determinations to watch, she went on in a profound slumber for more than one hour after her usual time of rising. A morning of hurry and anxiety succeeded. Dudley had already gone out with the gamekeepers and Edgar to shoot; Lord Hadley was still in bed; Mr. Filmer had been summoned to a dying man at daybreak.