"I don't know. It sounded like breaking boards. Do go down cellar, and
find out what it was."

"The scoundrels!" roared the squire, as he rushed up and down the room
again with the fury of a madman. "I'll teach them to break into my house!"

"Be calm, father," interposed Mrs. Pemberton, who, like most New England
mothers, called her husband by the title which belonged exclusively to the
children.

"Calm? How can I be calm? Don't you hear the ruffians shout and yell?"

"They are only cheering the flag."

The squire muttered a malediction upon the flag, which would probably have
procured for him a coat of tar and feathers, if the mob had heard it. Mrs.
Pemberton was silent, for she had never seen her husband so moved before.
She permitted him to pace the room in his frenzy till his anger had, in
some measure, subsided.

"I wish you would go down cellar and find out what that noise was," said
Mrs. Pemberton, as soon as she dared to speak again. "Perhaps some of them
are down there now. Who knows but they will set the house afire."

Squire Pemberton was startled by this suggestion, and, seizing the lamp,
he rushed down cellar to prevent so dire a calamity.