Aunt Gretel and I were left to our watch. Then, for the first time, when we ceased to watch for sleep to come over the poor exhausted aged frame, I began to watch the noises outside, and feel a creeping horror as I listened to the slow cold plashing of the water among the rushes, and the soughing, and wailing, and whistling of the wind among the leafless boughs of the wood behind us. There was one gnarled old oak especially, just outside the house, whose dry boughs creaked in the wind as if they had been dead beams instead of living branches. Often I thought I heard long sighs and wailings as of human voices, and with difficulty persuaded myself that it was fancy. But at last there came sounds which could not be mistaken--low whistles, and short, peculiar cries, responded to by others, until we became sure that a number of men must be moving about in the darkness around us. At first Aunt Gretel and I thought it must be the witch-finders come again for Gammer Grindle, and very softly we replaced the logs to barricade the door. But other sounds began to mingle with those of human voices, like the lowings of cattle forcibly driven. Suddenly I remembered my encounter that very morning with the royal troopers, which, with all that happened since, seemed weeks distant. "It is Sir Launcelot and the plunderers!" I exclaimed. "That accounts for their not sending after us," said Aunt Gretel. "They have tried to reach us, no doubt, and cannot." And we listened again. Then came something like a soft knock and a low cry, which seemed close to the door, and a heavy thud as of something falling. But, though we listened breathlessly, no second sound came; and the old stories of supernatural horrors haunting the place crept back to us, and kept us motionless. By this time the dawn was slowly creeping in, and making the lamp in the window red and dim. We sat crouching close together by the embers of the dying fire, and took each others' hands, and listened. The voices came nearer, till we could plainly distinguish them, and with them the sound of trampling: feet of men and horses, and then of men springing from the saddle and approaching the hut. "It's the old witch's den," a gruff voice said; "she's burning a candle to the devil. No one ever got good by going near her." Then a laugh, and Sir Launcelot Trevor's mocking voice,--