set her mind at ease. I have never named
Mr. Hayter, the rector, because I, as a well-to-do
and happy young woman, never came
in contact with him. He was an old bachelor,
but as afraid of matrimonial reports getting
abroad about him as any girl of eighteen:
and he would rush into a shop, or dive down
an entry, sooner than encounter any of the
Cranford ladies in the street; and, as for the
Preference parties, I did not wonder at his
not accepting invitations to them. To tell
the truth, I always suspected Miss Pole of
having given very vigorous chace to Mr.
Hayter when he first came to Cranford;
and not the less, because now she appeared
to share so vividly in his dread lest her name
should ever be coupled with his. He found
all his interests among the poor and helpless;
he had treated the National School boys this
very night to the performance; and virtue
was for once its own reward, for they guarded
him right and left, and clung round him as if
he had been the queen bee, and they the
swarm. He felt so safe in their environment
that he could even afford to give our party a
bow as we filed out. Miss Pole ignored his
presence, and pretended to be absorbed in
convincing us that we had been cheated, and
had not seen Signor Brunoni after all.

I think a series of circumstances dated from
Signor Brunoni's visit to Cranford, which
seemed at the time connected in our minds
with him, though I don't know that he had
anything really to do with them. All at
once all sorts of uncomfortable rumours got
afloat in the town. There were one or two
robberies—real bonâ fide robberies; men
had up before the magistrates and committed
for trial; and that seemed to make us all
afraid of being robbed; and for a long time
at Miss Matey's, I know, we used to make a
regular expedition all round the kitchens and
cellars every night, Miss Matey leading the
way, armed with the poker, I following with
the hearth-brush, and Martha carrying the
shovel and fire-irons with which to sound the
alarm; and by the accidental hitting together
of them she often frightened us so much that
we bolted ourselves up, all three together, in
the back kitchen, or store-room, or wherever
we happened to be, till, when our affright was
over, we recollected ourselves, and set out
afresh with double valiance. By day we
heard strange stories from the shopkeepers
and cottagers, of carts that went about in the
dead of night, drawn by horses shod with
felt, and guarded by men in dark clothes,
going round the town, no doubt, in search of
some unwatched house or some unfastened
door. Miss Pole, who affected great bravery
herself, was the principal person to collect
and arrange these reports, so as to make
them assume their most fearful aspect. But
we discovered that she had begged one of Mr.
Hoggins' worn-out hats to hang up in her
lobby, and we (at least I) had my doubts as
to whether she really would enjoy the little
adventure of having her house broken into,
as she protested she should. Miss Matey
made no secret of being an arrant coward;
but she went regularly through her housekeeper's
duty of inspection, only the hour for
this became earlier and earlier, till at last we
went the rounds at half-past six, and Miss
Matey adjourned to bed soon after seven, " in
order to get the night over the sooner."

Cranford had so long piqued itself on being
an honest and moral town, that it had grown
to fancy itself too genteel and well-bred to be
otherwise, and felt the stain upon its character
at this time doubly. But we comforted
ourselves with the assurance which we
gave to each other, that the robberies could
never have been committed by any Cranford
person; it must have been a stranger or
strangers, who brought this disgrace upon
the town, and occasioned as many precautions
as if we were living among the Red Indians
or the French. This last comparison of our
nightly state of defence and fortification, was
made by Mrs. Forrester, whose father had
served under General Burgoyne in the
American war, and whose husband had
fought the French in Spain. She indeed inclined
to the idea that, in some way, the
French were connected with the small thefts,
which were ascertained facts, and the burglaries
and highway robberies, which were
rumours. She had been deeply impressed
with the idea of French spies, at some time
in her life; and the notion could never be
fairly eradicated, but sprung up again from
time to time. And now her theory was this:
the Cranford people respected themselves
too much, and were too grateful to the aristocracy
who were so kind as to live near the
town, ever to disgrace their bringing up by
being dishonest or immoral; therefore, we
must believe that the robbers were strangers
—if strangers, why not foreigners?—if
foreigners, who so likely as the French?
Signor Brunoni spoke broken English like a
Frenchman, and, though he wore a turban
like a Turk, Mrs. Forrester had seen a print
of Madame de Staël with a turban on, and
another of Mr. Denon in just such a dress
as that in which the conjurer had made
his appearance; showing clearly that the
French, as well as the Turks, wore turbans:
there could be no doubt Signor Brunoni
was a Frenchman—a French spy, come
to discover the weak and undefended places
of England; and, doubtless, he had his accomplices;
for her part, she, Mrs. Forrester,
had always had her own opinion of Miss
Pole's adventure at the George Inn—seeing
two men where only one was believed to be.
French people had ways and means, which
she was thankful to say the English knew
nothing about; and she had never felt quite
easy in her mind about going to see that
conjurer; it was rather too much like a forbidden
thing, though the rector was there.
In short, Mrs. Forrester grew more excited