“No, that you can’t,” answered Mrs. Wood; “he has gone out without leave, and has taken Thames Darrell with him.  If I were Mr. Wood, when he does return, I’d send him about his business.  I wouldn’t keep an apprentice to set my authority at defiance.”

Mr. Wood’s reply, if he intended any, was cut short by a loud knocking at the door.

“’Odd’s-my-life!—­what’s that?” he cried, greatly alarmed.

“It’s Jonathan Wild come back with a troop of constables at his heels, to search the house,” rejoined Mrs. Wood, in equal trepidation.  “We shall all be murdered.  Oh! that Mr. Kneebone were here to protect me!”

“If it is Jonathan,” rejoined Wood, “it is very well for Mr. Kneebone he’s not here.  He’d have enough to do to protect himself, without attending to you.  I declare I’m almost afraid to go to the door.  Something, I’m convinced, has happened to the boys.”

“Has Jonathan Wild been here to-day?” asked Mrs. Sheppard, anxiously.

“To be sure he has!” returned Mrs. Wood; “and Blueskin, too.  They’re only just gone, mercy on us! what a clatter,” she added, as the knocking was repeated more violently than before.

While the carpenter irresolutely quitted the room, with a strong presentiment of ill upon his mind, a light quick step was heard descending the stairs, and before he could call out to prevent it, a man was admitted into the passage.

“Is this Misther Wudd’s, my pretty miss?” demanded the rough voice of the Irish watchman.

“It is”, seplied Winifred; “have you brought any tidings of Thames Darrell!”

“Troth have I!” replied Terence:  “but, bless your angilic face, how did you contrive to guess that?”

“Is he well?—­is he safe?—­is he coming back,” cried the little girl, disregarding the question.

“He’s in St. Giles’s round-house,” answered Terence; “but tell Mr. Wudd I’m here, and have brought him a message from his unlawful son, and don’t be detainin’ me, my darlin’, for there’s not a minute to lose if the poor lad’s to be recused from the clutches of that thief and thief-taker o’ the wurld, Jonathan Wild.”

The carpenter, upon whom no part of this hurried dialogue had been lost, now made his appearance, and having obtained from Terence all the information which that personage could impart respecting the perilous situation of Thames, he declared himself ready to start to Saint Giles’s at once, and ran back to the room for his hat and stick; expressing his firm determination, as he pocketed his constable’s staff with which he thought it expedient to arm himself, of being direfully revenged upon the thief-taker:  a determination in which he was strongly encouraged by his wife.  Terence, meanwhile, who had followed him, did not remain silent, but recapitulated his story, for the benefit of Mrs. Sheppard.  The poor widow was thrown into an agony of distress on learning that a robbery had been committed, in which her son (for she could not doubt that Jack was one of the boys,) was implicated; nor was her anxiety alleviated by Mrs. Wood, who maintained stoutly, that if Thames had been led to do wrong, it must be through the instrumentality of his worthless companion.