It was impossible for work to go on with such a night to canvass. One group, as Bayle approached, was watching the little fire-engine, and the drying of its hose which was hauled up by one end over the branch of an oak-tree at Poppin's Corner. There was nothing to see but the little, contemptible, old-fashioned pump on wheels; still fifty people, who had seen it in the belfry every Sunday as they went to church, stopped to stare at it now. But the great group was round about the manager's house, many of them being the idlers and scamps of the place, who had been foremost in the destruction. The public-houses had their contingents; and then there were the farmers from all round, who had driven in, red-hot with excitement; and, as soon as they had left their gigs or carts in the inn-yard, were making their way up to the bank. Some did not stop to go to the inn, but were there in their conveyances, waiting for the bank to open, long before the time, and quite a murmur of menace arose, when, to the very moment, James Thickens, calm and cool and drab as usual, threw open the door, to be driven back by a party of those gathered together. Fortunately the news had spread slowly, so that the crowd was not large; but it was augmented by a couple of score of the blackguards of the place, hungry-eyed, moist of lip, and ready for any excuse to leap over the bank counter and begin the work of plunder. For the first time in his life James Thickens performed that feat-- leaping over the counter to place it between himself and the clamorous mob, who saw Mr Trampleasure there and Sir Gordon Bourne in the manager's room, with the door open, and something on the table. "Here--Here"--"Here--Me"--"No, me." "I was first." "No, me, Thickens." "My money." "My cheque." "Change these notes." The time was many years ago, and there were no dozen or two of county constabulary to draft into the place for its protection. Hence it was that as Thickens stood, cool and silent, before the excited crowd, Sir Gordon, calm and stern, appeared in the doorway with a couple of pistols in his left hand, one held by the butt, the other by the barrel passed under his thumb. "Silence!" he cried in a quick, commanding tone. "I am prepared--" "Yah! No speeches. Our money! Our--" "Silence!" roared Sir Gordon. "We are waiting to pay all demands." "Hear, hear! Hooray!" shouted one of the farmers, who had come in hot haste, and his mottled face grew calm. "But we can't--" "Yah--yah!" came in a menacing yell. "Over with you, lads!" cried a great ruffian, clapping his hands on the counter and making a spring, which the pressure behind checked and hindered, so that he only got one leg on the counter. "Back, you ruffian!" cried Sir Gordon, taking a step forward, and, quick as lightning, presenting a pistol at the fellow's head. "You, Dick Warren, I gave you six months for stealing corn. Move an inch forward, and as I am a man I'll fire."