The roan's missing." "Maybe the red-coats have him," said Mr.Rogers, holding out his tumbler.

"Here, pass the kettle, somebody!" "Red-coats ?" she cried sharply.

"You don't tell me--" But the sentence was drowned by a new and (to me) very horrible noise--the furious barking of dogs from the stables or kennels in the rear of the house.

Here was a new danger: and I liked it so little--the prospect of being bayed naked through those pitch-dark shrubberies by a pack of hounds--that I broke from my covert of laurel, hurriedly skirted the broad patch of light on the carriage sweep, and plumped down close to the windows, behind a bush of mock-orange at the end of the verandah, whence a couple of leaps would land me within it among Miss Belcher's guests.

And I felt that even Mr.Whitmore was less formidable than Miss Belcher's dogs.
Their barking died down after a minute or so, and the company, two or three of whom had started to their feet, seemed to be reassured and began to call upon Jack Rogers for his explanation.