ding staircase, and dragged his crimson dressing-gown to the top
of the cellar stairs, the uproar growing momentarily more terrific.
Half-way down the whitewashed steps he paused, viewing the remarkable
scene below him with interest and amazement. The cemented floor was
literally covered with neatly chopped kindling-wood, which rose as in a
tide under the efforts of a large red-faced man who, with the regularity
of a machine, stooped, grasped a billet in either hand, shook them in
the face of Miss Gould, who cowered upon a soap-box at his side, and
flung them on the floor. From the woodhouse near the cellar muffled
shouts were heard through a storm of blows on the door. From the
rattling of this door, and the fact that the red-faced man aimed every
third stick at it, the observer might readily conclude that some one
desirous of leaving the woodhouse was locked within it.

For a moment the spectator on the stairs stood stunned. The noise
was deafening; the appearance of the man, whose expression was one of
settled rage but whose actions were of the coldest regularity, was most
bewildering, partially obscured as it was by the flying billets of
wood; the mechanical attempts of Miss Gould to rise from the soap-box,
invariably checked by a fierce brandishing of the stick just taken from
the lessening pile, were at once startling and fascinating, inasmuch
as she was methodically waved back just as her knees had unbent for the
trial, and as methodically essayed her escape again, alternately rising
with dignity and sinking back in terror.

The red dressing-gown advanced a step, and met her gaze. Dignity and
terror shifted to relief.

"Oh, Mr. Welles!" she gasped. Her lodger girded up his _robe de chambre_
with its red silk cord and advanced with decision through the chaos of
birch and hickory. A struggle, sharp but brief, and he turned to find
Miss Gould offering a coil of clothes-rope with which to bind the
conquered, whom conflict had sobered, for he made no resistance.

"What do you mean by such idiotic actions?" the squire of dames
demanded, as he freed the maddened Henry from his durance vile in the
woodhouse and confronted the red-faced man, who had not uttered a word.

He cast a baffled glance at Miss Gould and a triumphant smile at Henry
before replying. Then, disdaining the lady's righteous indignation and
the hired man's threatening gestures, he faced the gentleman in the
scarlet robe and spoke as man to man.

"