CHAPTER VI.
"The alarm was so strong.
So loud and so long, 'Twas surely some robber, or sprite, Who without any doubt Was prowling about To fill ev'ry heart with affright." ~47~~THE smiles of a May morning, bedecked with the splendid rays of a rising sun, awakened Tallyho about five o'clock, and being accustomed to rise early in the country, he left the downy couch of soft repose, and sought his way down stairs.

Not a sound of any kind was to be heard in the house, but the rattling of the carts and the coaches in the streets, with the deep-toned accompaniment of a dustman's bell, and an occasional _ab libitum_ of "Clothes--clothes sale," gave Bob an idea that all the world was moving.

However he could find nobody up; he walked into the drawing-room, amused himself for some time by looking out of the window, indulging his observations and remarks, without knowing what to make of the moving mass of incongruities which met his eye, and wondering what time the servants of the house would wake: he tried the street-door, but found it locked, bolted, and chained; and if he had known where to have found his friend Tom, he would have aroused him with _the View halloo_.
"It is strange," thought he to himself, "all the world seems abroad, and yet not a soul stirring here!" Then checking the current of his reflections, "But this," said he, "is Life in London.

Egad! I must not make a noise, because it will not be _good breeding_." In this wray he sauntered about the house for near two hours, till at last espying his portmanteau, which had been left in the passage by the servants the previous evening--"I'll carry this up stairs," said he, "by way of amusement;" and carelessly shouldering the portmanteau, he was walking ~48~~deliberately up stairs, when his ears were suddenly attracted by a loud cry of "Murder, murder, thieves, murder!" and the violent ringing of a bell.

Alarmed at these extraordinary sounds, which appeared to be near him at a moment when he conceived no soul was stirring, he dropped his portmanteau over the banisters, which fell, (demolishing in its way an elegant Grecian patent lamp with glass shades, drops, &c.) into the passage below with a hideous crash, while the cry of Murder, thieves, murder, was repeated by many voices, and rendered him almost immoveable.
In the next moment, the butler, the cook, the groom, and indeed every person in the house, appeared on the stair-case, some almost in a state of nudity, and shrinking from each other's gaze, and all armed with such weapons as chance had thrown in their way, to attack the supposed depredator.
Among the rest, fortunately for Tallyho, (who stood balancing himself against the banisters in a state of indecision whether he should ascend or descend) Tom Dashall in his night-gown burst out of his room in alarm at the noise, with a brace of pistols, one in his hand in the very act of cocking it, and the other placed in convenient readiness under his left arm.