Seeing this, I opened the window and shouted with all my might.
“Apprehend them! They are villains and thieves. They have broken into this house and tried to kill us all, besides setting fire to the cellar and everything in it!”
The men without, both those on foot and those on horseback, had been calm till they heard this, and then, lo! each cavalier dismounted and all came running to the door, calling on us to open instantly.
“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.