“Why, sir,” says I, “I fear you will be under the necessity you speak of, for we have no mind to submit ourselves to you. Why should we?” I says, giving him back a smile as gracious as his own. “This is Fairfax’s own hand,” says he, producing a paper, and pointing to some writing in the corner. “I am so far away from it that I do not recognise it, sir,” says I. He put the paper within his doublet. “Can we not talk matters over, Master Coope?” says he. “With all the pleasure in the world, sir,” says I. “That is,” I says, “if you love to discuss matters in so public a fashion.” He looked round him. “But I don’t,” he says. “Come, Master Coope, we are gentlemen and can trust each other. I will dismiss my men to a distance and you shall come down and talk with me--or I will enter the house and talk with you. I am quite indifferent,” he says. “Why, sir,” says I, “’tis, I assure you, no easy matter for me to leave the house or for you to enter it. But if you will dismiss your forces, or give me your word of honour that you will not suffer them to molest or hinder me, I will come into the garden and talk with you right willingly.” “I will do both, Master Coope,” says he. And therewith he turned and dismissed his men, bidding them retire into the meadow that lay beyond the garden. “You have safe conduct out and in,” he says, looking at me. “I await your coming with eagerness, Master Coope.” As I passed my uncle’s door Alison came out of his room and laid a hand on my arm. “Barbara tells me you are going to hold parley with the enemy,” she says. “You will have no dealings with him in the way of surrender?” she says, looking at me very hard. “Surrender?” says I, smiling. “Come, cousin, what do you take me for?” “I have better thoughts of you than that,” says she. She turned and looked at the door that separated us from Sir Nicholas. “He is near the end,” she says sadly. “Let him die a free man, Richard, even if the old house is tumbling about his death-bed.” “Give me your hand on it, cousin,” says I, strangely moved. She put her hand in mine and looked into my eyes. “I trust you,” she says, and withdrew her hand, and went back into Sir Nicholas’s chamber. I called John Stirk to me as I ran down the stairs, and with his aid I moved sufficient of the barricade that secured the window in the herb-room to enable me to get out. “Wait there with your musket until my safe return, John,” says I, and hurried round the corner of the house into the flower-garden. The officer waited me there, leaning against his horse. “So we are to talk, sir,” says I, coming up to him. “And I am glad of the chance, Master Coope,” says he, frankly. “This is a strange business, and to tell you the truth, though I must and shall do my duty as a soldier. I am loth to be mixed up in it.” “Sir,” says I, “I am utterly at a loss to understand you.”