"Not to you any more than to the others!" I cried. For, indeed, I saw not any good reason. It appeared to me, since there was no real fighting, that the two parties must be in alliance, or, at least, have an understanding between them. But Agnes Anne called out, "Nonsense, I see Uncle Aleck and Uncle Ebenezer. I am going to open the door to them, whatever you say!" So all in a minute the house of Marnhoul, long so desolate and silent, wherein such deeds of valour and strategy had recently been wrought, grew populous with a multitude all eager to win down to the cellar. But Agnes Anne brought up my three uncles (and another who was with them) and bade them watch carefully over the safety of Louis and Miss Irma. (For so I must again call her now that she had, as it were, come to her own again.) As for me they carried me down with them, to tell all about the attempt to burn the goods in the cellar. And angry men they were when they saw so many webs of fine cloth, so many bolts of Flanders lace, so many kegs of rare brandy damaged and as good as lost. But when they understood that, but for my address and quickness, all would have been lost to them, they made me many compliments. Also an old man with a silver-hilted sword, who carried himself like some great gentleman, bade me tell him my _name_, and wrote it down in his note-book, saying that I was of too good a head and quick a hand to waste on a dominie. And, indeed, I was of that mind (or something very much like it) myself. An old haunted house like Marnhoul to defend, a young maid of high family to rescue (and adopt you as her brother for a reward) did somehow take the edge off teaching the Rule of Three and explaining the _De Bello Gallico_ to imps who cannot understand, and would not if they could. PART II CHAPTER XV MY GRANDMOTHER SPEAKS HER MIND "There is no use talking" (said my grandmother, as she always did when she was going to do a great deal of it), "no, listen to me, there is no use talking! These two young things need a home, and if _we_ don't give it to them, who will? Stay longer in that great gaol of a house, worse than any barn, they shall not--exposed day and night to a traffic of sea rascals, thieves and murderers, _they shall not_----" "What I want to know is who is to keep them, and what the safer they will be here?" It was the voice of my Aunt Jen which interrupted. None else would have dared--save mayhap my grandfather, who, however, only smiled and was silent. "Ne'er you mind that, Janet," cried her mother, "what goes out of our basket and store will never be missed. And father says the same, be sure of that!" My grandfather did say the same, if to smile quietly and approvingly is to speak. At any rate, in a matter which did not concern him deeply, he knew a wiser way than to contradict Mistress Mary Lyon. She was quite capable of keeping him awake two-thirds of the night arguing it out, without the faintest hope of altering the final result.