on their connivance, and innocence despair of their aid, there was no
neighborhood to alarm, no refuge at hand. The spot was well chosen.

The doors of the inn were closed; there was a light in the room below:
but the outside shutters were drawn over the windows on the first floor.
My uncle paused a moment, and said to the postilion,--

"Do you know the back way to the premises?"

"No, sir; I does n't often come by this way, and they be new folks that
have taken the house,--and I hear it don't prosper over much."

"Knock at the door; we will stand a little aside while you do so. If
any one ask what you want, merely say you would speak to the servant,--
that you have found a purse. Here, hold up mine."

Roland and I had dismounted, and my uncle drew me close to the wall by
the door, observing that my impatience ill submitted to what seemed to
me idle preliminaries.

"Hist!" whispered he. "If there be anything to conceal within, they
will not answer the door till some one has reconnoitred; were they to
see us, they would refuse to open. But seeing only the post-boy, whom
they will suppose at first to be one of those who brought the carriage,
they will have no suspicion. Be ready to rush in the moment the door is
unbarred."

My uncle's veteran experience did not deceive him. There was a long
silence before any reply was made to the post-boy's summons; the light
passed to and fro rapidly across the window, as if persons were moving