V After that things happened quickly. A light instantly cleaved the darkness, and he saw an open door, a candle held aloft, and the strangest figure holding it. At the same time a deep voice said: “Stand just where you are! Move another step and I fire!” “Don’t fire, please,” said Jeremy. “It’s only me!” The figure confronting him was a woman’s. It was, in fact, quite easily to be recognized as that of Miss Lisbeth Mackenzie, who had lived next door to the Coles for years and years and years—ever since, in fact, Jeremy could remember—and waged, like Betsy Trotwood, incessant warfare on boys, butchers and others who walked across her lawn, whose only merit had been that she hated Aunt Amy, and told her so. She was an eccentric old woman, eccentric in manners, in habits and appearance, but surely never in her life had she looked so eccentric as she did now. With her white hair piled untidily on her head, her old face of a crow pallid behind her hooked and piercing nose, over her nightdress she had hurriedly gathered her bed-quilt—a coat, like Joseph’s, of many and varied colours—and on her feet were white woollen stockings. In the hand that did not hold the candle she flourished a pistol that, even to Jeremy’s unaccustomed and childish eyes, was undoubtedly a very old and dusty one. They must have been a queer couple to behold had there been any third person there to behold them: the small boy, dishevelled, hatless, his collar burst, his stockings down over his ankles, and the old woman in her patchwork quilt. Miss Mackenzie, having expected to behold a hirsute and ferocious burglar, was considerably surprised. She held the candle closer, then exclaimed: “Why, you’re a little Cole from next door.” “Yes,” said Jeremy. “I thought this was our pantry and it was yours. Wait a minute. I’m going to sneeze.” This he did, and then hurried on breathlessly: “Please let me go now and I’ll come in to-morrow and explain everything and pay for the cups and saucers. But I don’t want them to know that I’ve been out.” “Here, pick the bits up at once,” she said, “or somebody will be cutting themselves. It’s just like that maid, having it out on the table. That settles it. She shall leave to-morrow.” She put down the candle and pistol on the table, and then watched him while he picked up the pieces. They were not very many. “And now please may I go?” said Jeremy again. “I didn’t mean to come into your house. I didn’t really. I’ll explain everything to-morrow.” “No, you won’t,” said Miss Mackenzie grimly. “You’ll explain here and now. That’s a pretty thing to come breaking into somebody’s house after midnight, and then thinking you can go out just as easily as you came in. . . . You can sit down,” she said as a kind of afterthought, pointing to a chair.