But though they search so diligently they would probably faint on the spot if they so much as saw the heels of the housebreaker they are looking for. Yet you cannot reason with these poor creatures. You cannot deny the fact that burglars have been found before now secreted in bedrooms; and you cannot pooh-pooh the murders and housebreakings which are reported in the newspapers; so you have nothing to say to their argument that things which have happened once may happen again, and that there is no reason why they specially should be exempt from a misfortune to which others have been subjected. But you feel that their terrors are just so much pith and substance taken out of their strength; and that if they could banish the fear of burglars from their minds they would be so much the more valuable members of society, while the exorcism of their dismal demon would be so much the better for themselves. It is the same in everything. If they are living in the country, and go up to London lodgings, they take the ground floor for fear of fire and being burnt alive in their beds. If they go from London to the country they see an escaped convict or a murderer in every ragged reaper asking for work, or every tramp that begs for broken victuals at the door. The country to them is full of dangers. In the shooting season they are sure they will be shot if they go near a wood or a turnip-field. They think they will be gored to death if they meet a meek-eyed cow going placidly through the lane to her milking; and you might as well try to march them up to the cannon's mouth as induce them to cross a field where cattle are grazing. If they are driving, and the horses are going at full trot, they say they are running away and clutch the driver's arm nervously. As travellers they are in a state of not wholly unreasonable apprehension the whole time the railway journey lasts. They wait at Folkestone for days for a smooth crossing; and when they are on board they call a breeze a gale, and make sure they are bound for the bottom if the sea chops enough to rock the boat so much as a cradle. If they go over a Swiss pass they say their prayers and shut their eyes till it is over; and they are horribly afraid of banditti on every foot of Italian ground, besides firmly believing in the complicity with brigands of all the innkeepers and _vetturini_.