highwayman masks of the followers of Galligaskins, these
wore only a strip of white kerchief across the face, though, as I could
see, more for the form of the thing than from any real apprehension of
danger.

Indeed, in the very forefront of the cavalcade I saw our own two cart
horses, Dapple and Dimple, and the lighter mare Bess, which my
grandfather used for riding to and fro upon his milling business. I had
not the least doubt that my three uncles were bestriding them, though I
never knew that there were any arms about the house except the old
fowling-piece belonging to grandfather, with which on moonlight nights
he killed the hares that came to nibble the plants in his cabbage
garden.

Soon the sailors and their abettors were fleeing in every direction.
But, what took me very much by surprise, there was no firing or cutting
down, though there was a good deal of smiting with the flat of the
sword. And at the entrance of the ice-mound I saw a great many very
scurvy fellows come trickling out, all burned and scorched, to run the
gauntlet of a row of men on foot, who drubbed them soundly with cudgels
before letting them go.

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 atte