The strangers' gallery, which was immediately above the door of the
House, had been ordered to be closed on the first rumour of disturbance,
and was empty; save that now and then Lord George took his seat there,
for the convenience of coming to the head of the stairs which led to
it, and repeating to the people what had passed within. It was on
these stairs that Barnaby, Hugh, and Dennis were posted. There were two
flights, short, steep, and narrow, running parallel to each other,
and leading to two little doors communicating with a low passage which
opened on the gallery. Between them was a kind of well, or unglazed
skylight, for the admission of light and air into the lobby, which might
be some eighteen or twenty feet below.
Upon one of these little staircases--not that at the head of which Lord
George appeared from time to time, but the other--Gashford stood with
his elbow on the bannister, and his cheek resting on his hand, with his
usual crafty aspect. Whenever he varied this attitude in the slightest
degree--so much as by the gentlest motion of his arm--the uproar was
certain to increase, not merely there, but in the lobby below; from
which place no doubt, some man who acted as fugleman to the rest, was
constantly looking up and watching him.
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