heir pockets which didn't belong
to them, dividing his own money before his own eyes, wantonly wasting,
breaking, pulling down and tearing up: nothing quiet, nothing private:
men everywhere--above, below, overhead, in the bedrooms, in the kitchen,
in the yard, in the stables--clambering in at windows when there were
doors wide open; dropping out of windows when the stairs were handy;
leaping over the bannisters into chasms of passages: new faces and
figures presenting themselves every instant--some yelling, some singing,
some fighting, some breaking glass and crockery, some laying the dust
with the liquor they couldn't drink, some ringing the bells till they
pulled them down, others beating them with pokers till they beat them
into fragments: more men still--more, more, more--swarming on like
insects: noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans,
plunder, fear, and ruin!

Nearly all the time while John looked on at this bewildering scene, Hugh
kept near him; and though he was the loudest, wildest, most destructive
villain there, he saved his old master's bones a score of times. Nay,
even when Mr Tappertit, excited by liquor, came up, and in assertion of
his prerogative politely kicked John Willet on the shins, Hugh bade him
return the compliment; and if old John had had sufficient presence of
mind to understand this whispered direction, and to profit by it, he
might no doubt, under Hugh's protection, have done so with impunity.

At length the band began to reassemble outside the house, and to call
to those within, to join them, for they were losing time. These murmurs
increasing, and attaining a high pitch, Hugh, and some of those who yet
lingered in the bar, and who plainly were the leaders of the troop, took
counsel together, apart, as to what was to be done with John, to keep
him quiet until their Chigwell work was over. Some proposed to set the
house on fire and leave him in it; others, that he should be reduced
to a state of temporary insensibility, by knocking on the head; others,
that he should be sworn to sit where he was until to-morrow at the same
hour; others again, that he should be gagged and taken off with them,
under a sufficient guard. All these propositions being overruled, it was
concluded, at last, to bind him in his chair, and the word was passed
for Dennis.

'Look'ee here, Jack!' said Hugh, striding up to him: 'We are going to
tie you, hand and foot, but otherwise you won't be hu