men; one carried a dark lantern, from which the light proceeded, and
some tools, of the nature of which Clarence was naturally ignorant:
this was a middle-sized muscular man, dressed in the rudest garb of an
ordinary labourer; the other was much taller and younger, and his
dress was of a rather less ignoble fashion.

"Hist! hist!" said the taller one, in a low tone, "did you not hear a
noise, Ben?"

"Not a pin fall; but stow your whids, man!"

This was all that Clarence heard in a connected form; but as the
wretches paused, in evident doubt how to proceed, he caught two or
three detached words, which his ingenuity readily formed into
sentences. "No, no! sleeps to the left--old man above--plate chest;
we must have the blunt too. Come, track up the dancers, and douse the
glim." And at the last words the light was extinguished, and
Clarence's quick and thirsting ear just caught their first steps on
the stairs; they died away, and all was hushed.

It had several times occurred to Clarence to rush from his hiding-
place, and fire at the ruffians, and perhaps that measure would have
been the wisest he could have taken; but Clarence had never discharged
a pistol in his life, and he felt, therefore, that his aim must be
uncertain enough to render a favourable position and a short distance
essential requisites. Both these were, at present, denied to him; and
although he saw no weapons about the persons of the villains, yet he
imagined they would not have ventured on so dangerous an expedition
without firearms; and if he failed, as would have been most probable,
in his two shots, he concluded that, though the alarm would be given,