She was so charmed with herself, and so utterly well pleased with the success of her pleading, that the little woman's nerves fairly quivered with jubilation; and best of all, the blue stocking was still safe in the well, for had she not watched with her own eyes every time the bucket was dipped to fetch up water for the fire, having, somehow, got rid of the vow she had taken regarding the drawing of the water. As she saw the lad looking, with surprised countenance, into the room where the feast was going on, a fear crept up her own face and darted out from her eyes. It was, lest Joe Devins should spoil it all by ill-timed words. She made haste to meet him, basket in hand. "Here, Joe," she said, "fetch me some small wood, there's a good boy." As she gave him the basket she was just in time to stop the rejoinder that was issuing from his lips. In time to intercept his return she was at the wood-pile. "Joe," she said, half-abashed before the truth that shone in the boy's eyes--"Joe," she repeated, "you know Major Pitcairn ordered the fire put out, _to please me_, because I begged him so, and, in return, what _can_ I do but give them something to eat? Come and help me." "I won't," responded he. "Their hands are red with blood. They've killed two men at the bridge." "Who's killed?" she asked, trembling, but Joe would not tell her. He demanded to know what had been done with Uncle John. "He's quiet enough, up-stairs," she replied, with a sudden spasm of feeling that she _had_ neglected Uncle John shamefully; still, with the day, and the fire and everything, how could she help it? but, really, it did seem strange that he made no noise, with a hundred armed men coming and going through the house. At least, that was what Joe thought, and, having deposited the basket of wood on the threshold of the kitchen door, he departed around the corner of the house. Presently he had climbed a pear tree, dropped from one of its overhanging branches on the lean-to, raised a sash and crept into the window. Slipping off his shoes, heavy with spring mud, he proceeded to search for Uncle John. He was not in his own room; he was not in the guest-chamber; he was not in any one of the rooms. On the floor, by the window in the hall, looking out upon the green, he found the broken cup and saucer that Martha Moulton had let fall. Having made a second round, in which he investigated every closet and penetrated into the spaces under beds, Joe thought of the garret. Tramp, tramp went the heavy feet on the sanded floors below, drowning every possible sound from above; nevertheless, as the lad opened the door leading into the garret, he whispered cautiously: "Uncle John! Uncle John!"