on't ye hurt he!" screamed Betty. "He that never did you no harm!
Don't ye! Oh, Dan Hewlett! Oh-oh!"

"Then throw us out the guns, old woman," called up the black-faced
figure, "and we'll let him be."

"If you do," shouted Pucklechurch--and then there was a rush in on him,
and they could see no more, for he must have backed under the verandah.
Betty made a dash for the front stairs, to come to his help, Sophy after
her; but, before they could even tumble to the bottom, there was a
change in the cries--

"The soldiers! the soldiers! Oh-hoo-hoo-hoo!" There was a scamper and
a scurry, a trampling of horses. The two trembling hands, getting in
each other's way, unfastened the door, which was not even locked, and
beheld Pucklechurch gathering himself up with a bleeding head, a cloud
of smoke and flame, and helmets and silver lace glancing through it.
There had been no need to read the Riot Act; the enemy were tearing
along all ways over the fields, except a few whom the horsemen had
intercepted. Dan Hewlett and the black-faced leader, without his long
nose, were two; the other three were--among the loudest, poor Softy Sam,
who had been yelling wildly--big lads, or young men, one from Downhill,
the others nearer home, howling and sobbing and praying to be let go.
Captain Carbonel's first thought was whether Pucklechurch was hurt, but
the old man was standing up scratching his head, and Betty hovering over
him. Then his eyes fell on his sister-in-law, and he exclaimed--

"You here, Sophy! Your sister is very anxious!"

But the fire was by this time getting ahead, and no one could attend to
anything else. The prisoners were put into the servants' hall, and
locked in; the horses were tied up at a safe distance, the poor things
rearing with alarm at the flame; the men were, under Sir Harry Hartman
and Captain Carbonel's orders, made to form a line from the pond, and
hand on the pails and buckets that were available; but these were not
very many, though the numbers of helpers were increased by the maids,
who had crept back from the orchard, and by the shepherd and some even
of the mob, conscious that they had been only lookers on, and "hadn't
done no harm."

It was a dry season, and the flames spread, catching the big barn, and
then seeming to fly in great flakes like a devouring winged thing to the
Pucklechurches' thatch. Betty and her husband flew to fling out their
more valued possessions, and were just in time