ho had stood by,
saucer-eyed and speechless, the while: "Anthony, do you be as big a
numbskull as you were born to be, and hold these redcoat gentlemen in
palaver till we can win out at the back."

The old majordomo nodded his good-will, but now my slow wit came in
play. "We've done it now," said I. "The horses will go out as they came
in, or not at all. Had you forgotten the stair at the back?"

Judge for yourselves, my dears, if this were the time, place or crisis
for a man to fling himself upon the hall settle, grip his ribs and laugh
like any lack-wit. Yet this is what Richard Jennifer did.

It was in the very midst of his gust of ill-timed merriment, while the
horses were nosing niftily at their strange surroundings, and the
hoof-strokes of the redcoat troop could be plainly heard on the gravel
of the avenue, that I chanced to lift my eyes to the stair. There,
looking down upon us with speechless astoundment in the blue-gray eyes,
stood our dear lady.

Another instant and she was with us, stamping her foot and crying: "_Mon
Dieu!_ what is this? Are you gone mad, both of you?"

Dick's answer was another burst of laughter, loud enough, you would
think, to be heard by those beyond the door.

"Behold four witless brute beasts, Mistress Madge--two horses and two
asses," he said. And then to old Anthony: "Open the door, Tony, and
invite the gentlemen in."

But Margery was before him. Ah, my dears, a man's wit is like a
matchlock, fizzing and sputtering its way noisily to find the powder
whilst the enemy hath time to ride up and saber the musketeer; but a
woman's is like the spark in a tinder-box--a quick snip of flint and
steel and you have your fire. In a flash my lady had torn down the heavy
curtains from an inner doorway and was carpeting a horse path for us to
the rear.

"Quick!" she cried; "lead them gently, for the love of heaven!"

She went before us, padding the way with whatever came first to hand,
rugs, curtains, table-coverings, and I know not what besides; and by the
time the British troopers were hammering at the outer door, we were deep
within the old mansion and had made shift to drag the unwilling horses
by one and two-step descents to a room half under and half out of
ground, which served as a sort of ante-dungeon to the wine cellar.

Here I thought we might be safe for the moment, but not so my lady.
Calling Dick to help her--in all the fierce haste of it I marked that
she called to Dick and