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“Soldiers!” said Sophie. “What can bring them this way?”

“It’s the farmers coming the same way as Reuben for protection’s sake these winter nights, child.”

“Protection?”

“Haven’t you heard of the highwaymen about, and how a single traveller is never safe in these parts? Or a double one either–or–“

“Perhaps these are highwaymen.”

“Oh, good gracious! Let us get indoors and bar up,” cried Mrs. Tarne, wholly forgetful of Reuben Pemberthy’s safety after this suggestion. “Yes, it’s as likely to be highwaymen as soldiers.”

It was more likely. It was pretty conclusive that the odds were in favour of highwaymen when, five minutes afterward, eight mounted men rode up to the Maythorpe farm-house, dismounted with considerable noise and bustle, and commenced at the stout oaken door with the butt-ends of their riding-whips, hammering away incessantly and shouting out much strong language in their vehemence. This, being fortunately bawled forth all at once was incomprehensible to the dwellers within doors, now all scared together and no longer cool and self-possessed.

“Robbers!” said Mrs. Tarne.

“We’ve never been molested before, at least not for twenty years or more,” said Mrs. Pemberthy; “and then I mind–“

“Is it likely to be any of Reuben’s friends?” asked Sophie, timidly.

“Oh no; Reuben has no bellowing crowd like that for friends. Ask who is there–somebody.”

But nobody would go to the door save Sophie Tarne herself. The maids were huddled in a heap together in a corner of the dairy, and refused to budge an inch, and Mrs. Tarne was shaking more than Mrs. Pemberthy.

Sophie, with the colour gone from her face, went boldly back to the door, where the hammering on the panels continued and would have split anything of a less tough fibre than the English oak of which they were constructed.

“Who is there? What do you want?” she gave out in a shrill falsetto; but no one heard her till the questions were repeated about an octave and a half higher.

“Hold hard, Stango; there’s a woman calling to us. Stop your row, will you?”

A sudden cessation of the battering ensued, and some one was heard going rapidly backward over cobblestones amid the laughter of the rest, who had dismounted and were standing outside in the cold, with their hands upon their horses’ bridles.

“Who is there?” asked Sophie Tarne again.

“Travellers in need of assistance, and who–” began a polite and even musical voice, which was interrupted by a hoarse voice:

“Open in the king’s name, will you?”

“Open in the fiend’s name, won’t you?” called out a third and hoarser voice; “or we’ll fire through the windows and burn the place down.’

“What do you want?”

“Silence!” shouted the first one again; “let me explain, you dogs, before you bark again.”

There was a pause, and the polite gentleman began again in his mellifluous voice:

“We are travellers belated. We require corn for our horses, food for ourselves. There is no occasion for alarm; my friends are noisy, but harmless, I assure you, and the favour of admittance and entertainment here will be duly appreciated. To refuse your hospitality–the hospitality of a Pemberthy–is only to expose yourselves to considerable inconvenience, I fear.”

“Spoken like a book, Captain.”

“And, as we intend to come in at all risks,” added a deeper voice, “it will be better for you not to try and keep us out, d’ ye hear? D’ ye–Captain, if you shake me by the collar again I’ll put a bullet through you. I–“

“Silence! Let the worthy folks inside consider the position for five minutes.”

Not a minute longer, if they don’t want the place burned about their ears, mind you,” cried a voice that had not spoken yet.

“Who are you?” asked Sophie, still inclined to parley.

“Travellers, I have told you.”

“Thieves, cutthroats, and murderers–eight of us–knights of the road, gentlemen of the highway, and not to be trifled with when half starved and hard driven,” cried the hoarse man. “There, will that satisfy you, wench? Will you let us in or not? It’s easy enough for us to smash in the windows and get in that way, isn’t it?”