“You wouldn’t have been so mighty brave, cook, if Miss Penfold and me hadn’t been in front of you.”

“A lot of use you were!” the cook retorted.  “Six feet one of flesh, and no heart in it!  Why, I would have knocked him down with a broom if I had been within reach of him.”

“Yes, that we would, cook,” the under-housemaid said.  “I had got my poker ready, and I would have given it them nicely if I could have got within reach.  Miss Penfold was just as cool as if she had been eating her breakfast, and so was we all except John.”

John had by this time fastened up the shutter again, and feeling that his persecutors were too many for him he slunk off at once to his room; and the others, beginning to feel that their garments were scarcely fitted for the cold night air postponed their discussion of the affair until the following morning.  The next morning after breakfast the servants were called into the dining-room, and Miss Penfold interrogated them closely as to whether any of them had seen strange men about, or had been questioned by any one they knew as to valuables at the Hall.

“If it had not been for Anna,” she said, when she had finished without eliciting any information, “the house would have been robbed, and not any of us would have been any the wiser.  It was most fortunate that, as she says, she happened to be awake and heard the sounds; and she acted very properly in coming quietly down to wake me.  If the one man in the house,” and she looked scornfully at the unfortunate butler, “had been possessed of the courage of a man the whole of them would have been shot; for they were standing close together, and he could hardly have missed them if he had tried.

“If that weapon had been in the hands of Anna, instead of those of John Wilton, the results would have been very different.  However, John Wilton, you have been a, good servant generally, and I suppose it is not your fault if you have not the courage of a mouse, therefore I shall withdraw my notice for you to leave.  I shall make arrangements for the gardener to sleep in the house in future, and you will hand that blunderbuss over to him.  I shall write to-day to the ironmonger at Weymouth to come over and fix bells to all the shutters, and to arrange wires for a bell from my room to that which the gardener will occupy.”

At breakfast Miss Penfold informed her sister of what had taken place the night before.

“I shall write, of course, to the head constable at Weymouth to send over to inquire about it, but I have very little hope that he will discover anything, Eleanor.”

“Why do you think that, Charlotte?  You said that you were convinced you had wounded one of the men; so they ought to be able to trace him.”

“I dare say they would if this had been an ordinary theft; but I am convinced that it was not.”

“Not an ordinary theft!  What do you mean?”

“I have no doubt in my mind, Eleanor, that it was another attempt to discover the will.”