Now that sleep had once begun upon him, assisted by the ale, John looked
some degrees less alive, though far more respectable than on his first
arrival. He was ushered into the coffee-room, where three or four
gentlemen sat at one table, all in blue and silver, with the captain,
and as he pulled his forelock and bobbed his head, the elder of them--a
dignified looking man with grey hair and whiskers and a silver-laced
uniform, said--"So, my lad, you are come to warn Captain Carbonel of an
intended attack on his property?"

"Yes, sir," John mumbled, looking more and more of a lout, for he had
thought the captain would just go home alone to defend his wife and his
machine, and was dismayed at finding the matter taken up in this way,
dreading lest he should have brought every one into trouble and be
viewed as an informer.

"What evidence have you of such intentions?"

John looked into his hat and shuffled on his foot, and Captain Carbonel,
who knew that Sir Harry Hartman, the old gentleman, was persuaded that
Delafield was the place to protect, was in an agony lest John should be
too awkward and too anxious to shield his family to convince him. He
ventured to translate the words into "How do you know?"

His voice somehow made John feel that he must speak, and he said, "Aunt
heard it."

"What's that? Who is aunt?" said Sir Harry, in a tone as if deciding
that it was gossip; but this put John rather more on his mettle, and he
said, "My aunt, Judith Grey, sir."

"How did she hear?"

"Through the window. She heard them laying it out."

"She is bedridden," put in the captain; "but a clever, sensible woman."

"Whom did she hear or see?"

"She couldn't see nobody, sir. It was a strange voice," John was trying
to save the truth.

"Oh! and what did she hear?"

"They was planning to go round the place and call up the men--that's
to-day," said John.

"Are you sure it was to-day? Did she tell you she heard it?"

"Yes, sir. And," John bethought him, "there was a great row going on at
the `Fox and Hounds,' and when I came past Poppleby, a whole lot of them
come out singing `Down with the machines.'"

"That's more like it, if it was not a mere drunken uproar," said Sir
Harry.

"I suppose you did not know any of the voices?" said one of the other
gentlemen.

John could hold his tongue this time. "And you came all this way by
night, twenty miles and odd, to warn Captain Carbonel, on your aunt's
information?"