"You lie, Mr. Boyd!" cried the young captain. He threw himself at Gilbert's throat, forgetting the disparity in their years, forgetting policy, everything. "Back with you, baby in your gold-laced cap!" quoth Boyd, dashing him to the floor with one stroke of his muscular arm, all his fiery temper and outraged respect showing themselves in his defiant attitude. Jermain struck out both hands in falling. He dragged Boyd nearly prostrate. Gilbert resisted furiously. This violent turn of affairs consumed so little time that the crestfallen Roxley and Dawkin were taken by surprise. But Dawkin and one of the men-servants sprang forward and caught hold of the Captain. Roxley grasped Boyd. The two were forced apart. With Boyd panting and Jermain cursing, each was made to right himself. But, just as the on-lookers restrained them, Andrew Boyd hurriedly crossed the threshold of the room. He uttered a cry of terror. In the confusion of struggling figures, the clamor of eavesdropping women, and exclamations of the rest, it seemed to him immediately that Roxley was throttling Gilbert. "Unhand my father, villain!" the intrepid boy called out, springing like a tiger-cat on the uncouth dragoon. With a blow from his doubled fist he struck stout Roxley much more effectively than the rules of his Lordship of Queensberry now sanction--aiming at, in a gastronomic as well as a pugilistic sense, Roxley's most attackable spot--and at the same time seized him by the windpipe. Roxley, roaring and gasping, released Gilbert; then strove to clutch this puissant enemy. The _mêlée_ might have become general, for the room rang with exclamations and threats and the scuffle of feet. But Boyd snatched Andrew to his side, waved away the servants, and cried, "Peace! peace, I say! This is no time for a brawl over a boy. Captain Jermain, command yonder fellow to keep his hands for men, not children. Andrew, leave the room." Scarcely had Gilbert uttered such words when hasty steps came along the corridor. A cry of surprise echoed from the hall. The angry group turned. They beheld in the door-way a new participant--a short, spare little officer, of perhaps forty-five years, with grizzled hair, a thin face, set lips, and a pallid color. He stretched out his hand at the astonished disputants. "No! Neither Andrew nor any other person must leave the room. Mr. Boyd, you and these comrades here seem not to have expected visitors so early." It was Colonel Danforth. At his back appeared half a dozen other soldiers. Without the house were reined six times as many. The confusion within enabled the Colonel to make one of those quiet advents so dear to his cunning heart; and he had hastened up from the nearly deserted lower story to share in the extraordinary fracas, visible as well as audible through the open windows of the East Room, as he and his men had trotted up below.