Alison was in the death chamber, where Sir Nicholas’s body lay stiff and stark in its shroud. They had prepared him for his burial, Alison and old Barbara, with as much care as if he had been like to be buried with all the pomp and ceremony that is the due of a man of rank. The good old knight lay in his finest night clothes, the best linen the house afforded was spread on his bed, and they had lighted candles on either side of him, and hung the walls with black cloth. And since everything in that room was so mournful I would not talk there, but took my cousin down the stairs to the hall, where I made her sit near the fire while I addressed myself to her on the business then troubling me. She was looking pale and wearied, which was no matter of surprise, seeing that there had been precious little rest for anybody in that house since the investment began.
“Now, cousin,” says I, “there is need for some counsel ’twixt you and me. We are come to a sharp pass, cousin,” I says, “and unless we use our wits we are like to be undone.”
“What is it?” she says. “Has aught of moment happened to us?”
“Why,” says I, “’tis difficult to say what is and what is not of moment—one thing so leads to another. But I fear that the worst will happen to us in the morning.”
“The worst?” she says. “And what is that?”
“We killed their captain this afternoon,” says I. “As pleasant a fellow as e’er I spoke to, poor gentleman! And now I hear from that knave Wiggleskirk—though, indeed, he has done us more than one good turn—that another commander is coming with the dawn, and will bring cannon with him.”
She raised her head and looked at me steadily.
“So we shall have the old house tumbling about our ears?”
“We shall,” says I.
“Well?” says she, after regarding me again at some length.