many whose hearts went with the angry and excited crowd, and who
would bless them and caress them for that night's deeds. Daniel soon
found himself a laggard in planning, compared to some of those
around him. But when, with the rushing sound of many steps and but
few words, they had arrived at the blank, dark, shut-up Mariners'
Arms, they paused in surprise at the uninhabited look of the whole
house: it was Daniel once more who took the lead.

'Speak 'em fair,' said he; 'try good words first. Hobbs 'll mebbe
let 'em out quiet, if we can catch a word wi' him. A say, Hobbs,'
said he, raising his voice, 'is a' shut up for t' neet; for a'd be
glad of a glass. A'm Dannel Robson, thou knows.'

Not one word in reply, any more than from the tomb; but his speech
had been heard nevertheless. The crowd behind him began to jeer and
to threaten; there was no longer any keeping down their voices,
their rage, their terrible oaths. If doors and windows had not of
late been strengthened with bars of iron in anticipation of some
such occasion, they would have been broken in with the onset of the
fierce and now yelling crowd who rushed against them with the force
of a battering-ram, to recoil in baffled rage from the vain assault.
No sign, no sound from within, in that breathless pause.

'Come away round here! a've found a way to t' back o' behint, where
belike it's not so well fenced,' said Daniel, who had made way for
younger and more powerful men to conduct the assault, and had
employed his time meanwhile in examining the back premises. The men
rushed after him, almost knocking him down, as he made his way into
the lane into which the doors of the outbuildings belonging to the
inn opened. Daniel had already broken the fastening of that which