designed to carry to his own chamber.

We worked hard at all this--my Cousin Tom in a kind of fever, rolling
his eyes at every sound; and, at the last, we had all put away, and were
about to close the door of the hiding-hole. Then my Cousin Dorothy held
up her hand.

"Hush!" she said; and then, "There was a step on the paved walk."




CHAPTER IX


When my Cousin Dorothy said that, we all became upon the instant as
still as mice; and I saw my Cousin Tom's mouth suddenly hang open and
his eyes to become fixed. For myself, I cannot say precisely what I
felt; but it would be foolish to say that I was not at all frightened.
For to be crept upon in the dark, when all is quiet, in a solitary
country place; and to know, as I did, that behind all the silence there
is the roar of a mob--(as it is called)--for blood, and the Lord Chief
Justice's face of iron and his bitter murderous tongue, and the scaffold
and the knife--this is daunting to any man. I made no mistake upon the
matter. If this were Dangerfield himself, my life was ended; he would
not have come here, so far, and with such caution; he would not have
been at the pains to smell me out at all, unless he were sure of his
end; and, indeed, my companying so much with the Jesuits and my
encounter with Oates, and my seeking service with the King, and for no
pay too--all this, in such days, was evidence enough to hang an angel