Margot shrank back upon the stair-place and remained there, holding the bolt of the door in her hand, ready to shut off access to the upper house. 'I will take no beating, uncle,' she panted; 'this is my grandfather's abode and dwelling.' The old man was sniggering towards the window. He had gathered up his gown about his knees and picked his way between the pools of water on the floor and the Lutherans on their chairs towards the window. He mounted upon an oak chest that stood beneath the casement and, peering out, chuckled at what he saw. 'A mill race and a dam,' he muttered. 'This floor will be a duck pond in an hour.' 'Harlot and servant of a harlot,' the printer called to his niece. The Lutherans, who came from houses where father quarrelled with son and mother with daughter, hardly troubled more than to echo the printer's words of abuse. But one of them, a grizzled man in a blue cloak, who had been an ancient friend of the household, broke out: 'Naughty wench, thou wast at the ordeal of Dr Barnes.' Margot, drawing her knees up to her chin where she sat on the stairs, answered nothing. Had she not feared her uncle's stick, she was minded to have taken a mop to the floor and to have put a clout in the doorway. 'Abominable naughty wench,' the grizzled man went on. 'How had ye the heart to aid in that grim scene? Knew ye no duty to your elders?' Margot closed the skirts round her ankles to keep away the upward draught and answered reasonably: 'Why, Neighbour Ned, my mistress made me go with her to see a heretic swinged. And, so dull is it in our service, that I would go to a puppet show far less fine and thank thee for the chance.' The printer spat upon the floor when she mentioned her mistress. 'I will catechize,' he muttered. 'Answer me as I charge thee.' The old man, standing on the chest, tapped one of the Germans on the shoulder. 'See you that wall, friend?' he laughed. 'Is it not a noble dam to stay the flood back into our house? Now the Lord Cromwell....' The Lanzknecht rolled his eyes round, because he understood no English. The old man went on talking, but no one there, not even Margot Poins, heeded him. She looked at her uncle reasonably, and said: 'Why, an thou wilt set down thy stick I will even consider thee, uncle.' He threw the stick into the corner and immediately she went to fetch a mop from the cooking closet, where there lived a mumbling old housekeeper. The printer followed her with gloomy eyes. 'Is not thy mistress a naughty woman?' he asked, as a judge talks to a prisoner condemned. She answered, 'Nay,' as if she had hardly attended to him. 'Is she not a Papist?' She answered, 'Aye,' in the same tone and mopped the floor beneath a man's chair. Her grandfather, standing high on the oak chest, so that his bonnet brushed the beams of the dark ceiling, quavered at her: