Sir Robert Whitecraft himself was not with them, but the party were all but intoxicated, and, were it not for the calm and unshrinking firmness of Mr.Brown, would have been guilty of a very offensive degree of insolence.
Reilly, in the meantime, did not pass far from the house.

On the contrary, he resolved to watch from a safe place the motions of those who were in pursuit of him.

In order to do this more securely, he mounted into the branches of a magnificent oak tree that stood in the centre of a field adjoining a kind of back lawn that stretched from the walled garden of the parsonage.

The fact is, that the clergyman's house had two hall-doors--one in front, and the other in the rear--and as the rooms commanded a view of the scenery behind the house, which was much finer than that in front, on this account the back hall-door was necessary, as it gave them a free and easy egress to the lawn we have mentioned, from which a magnificent prospect was visible.
It was obvious that the party, though unsuccessful, had been very accurately informed.

Finding, however, that the bird had flown, several of them galloped across the lawn--it was a cavalry party, having been sent out for speed and passed into the field where the tree grew in which Reilly was concealed.