But, would you believe, miss, just as I got into the lane, afore you turns through the gate, I chanced to look back, and there, sure enough, was that ugly fellow close behind, a-running like mad.

Oh, I set up such a screetch; and young Dobbins was a-taking his cow out of the field, and he perked up over the hedge when he heard me; and the cow, too, with her horns, Lord bless her! So the fellow stopped, and I bustled through the gate, and got home.

But la, miss, if we are all robbed and murdered ?" Alice had not heard much of this harangue; but what she did hear very slightly affected her strong, peasant-born nerves; not half so much indeed, as the noise Mrs.Jones made in double-locking all the doors, and barring, as well as a peg and a rusty inch of chain would allow, all the windows--which operation occupied at least an hour and a half.
All at last was still.

Mrs.Jones had gone to bed--in the arms of sleep she had forgotten her terrors--and Alice had crept up-stairs, and undressed, and said her prayers, and wept a little; and, with the tears yet moist upon her dark eyelashes, had glided into dreams of Ernest.
Midnight was passed--the stroke of one sounded unheard from the clock at the foot of the stars.

The moon was gone--a slow, drizzling rain was falling upon the flowers, and cloud and darkness gathered fast and thick around the sky.
About this time, a low, regular, grating sound commenced at the thin shutters of the sitting-room below, preceded by a very faint noise, like the tinkling of small fragments of glass on the gravel without.