He was not framed for danger.

When the smoking glare of the links which the ringleaders carried began to dance and flicker on the opposite houses, he looked about him with a wild eye, and had already taken two steps towards the door, when it opened.
It admitted two men about Sir George's age, or a little younger.

One, after glancing round, passed hurriedly to the window and looked out; the other sank into the nearest chair, and, fanning himself with his hat, muttered a querulous oath.
'My dear lord!' cried the Reverend Frederick, hastening to his side--and it is noteworthy that he forgot even his panic in the old habit of reverence--'What an escape! To think that a life so valuable as your lordship's should lie at the mercy of those wretches! I shudder at the thought of what might have happened.' 'Fan me, Tommy' was the answer.

And Lord Almeric, an excessively pale, excessively thin young man, handed his hat with a gesture of exhaustion to the obsequious tutor.

'Fan me; that is a good soul.