This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear.

Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society.  When the story was told he pointed coolly to the door.

The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I shall never forget.

“Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute attorneys?” Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry.  “If there were no other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof.  A night-attack in the West is no child’s play.”

Kate had come out, and was leaning over the gallery.  She heard the last words, and spoke, flushing scarlet with anger.

“If I thought that my presence prevented an act of common humanity, I would leave your house this instant, Colonel Mohun.”

Ralph smiled slightly as he bent his head in courteous acknowledgment of her interruption.

“Don’t be indignant, Mrs. Carew.  If you have a fancy for such an excitement, I shall be too happy to indulge you.  It is settled, then?  We back the attorney.  Don’t lie there, sir, looking so like a whipped hound.  You hear?  You are safe for the present.”  He had hardly finished, when there came a rustling of feet outside, then hurried whispers, then a knock, and a summons.

“We’d like to spake wid the curnel, av ye plase.”

“I am here; what do ye want?” Mohun growled.

“We want the ’torney.  We know he’s widin.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.  It’s not my fancy to give him up.  I wouldn’t turn out a badger to you, let alone a man.”

You see, he took the high moral ground now.

“Then we’ll have him out in spite of yez,” two or three voices cried out together.

“Try it,” Ralph said.  “Meantime I am going to dine; good-night.”

A voice that had not spoken yet was heard, with a shrill, gibing accent.  “Ah! thin the best of appetites to ye, curnel, and make haste over yer dinner.  It’s Pierce Delaney that’ll give ye yer supper.”  Then they went off.

“The said Delaney is a huge quarryman,” Ralph observed.  “He represents the physical element of terror hereabouts, as I believe I do the moral.  We shall have warm work before morning.  He does not like me.  Fritz, send Connell up; he is below somewhere.”

The keeper came, looking very much surprised.  He had been in the stables, and had only just heard of the disturbance.

“Get the rifles and guns ready, with bullets and buckshot,” his master said.  “We are to be attacked, it seems.”

The man’s bold face fell blankly.

“By the powers, yer honor, I haven’t the value of an ounce of poudther in the house.  I meant to get some the morrow morning, afore ye were up.”