"Then I command you to open to me, in the name of King George."
"What if I don't?"
"Then 'twill be the worse for you and the ignorant men you're misleading. I'll give you five minutes to consider your answer."
"You may have it in five seconds. What you want you must come and take. Anything more?"
"Yes," said the Sheriff, "I am told that you have taken violent possession of the plaintiff in this suit. I warn you to do her no hurt, and I call upon you to surrender her."
Roger laughed, and through the gate it sounded a sinister laugh enough. "I doubt," said he, "that she can come if she would."
"I warn you also that any agreement or withdrawal of claim which you may wrest from her or force her to sign will under the circumstances be not worth the paper 'tis written on."
Roger laughed again. "I never thought of such a thing. I leave such dirty tricks to your side. Go back with ye, Master Sheriff, and call up your soldiers, if you must."
They tell that the first assault that day came nearest to succeeding. The Sheriff had provided himself with scaling ladders, and, concentrating his attack on the front, ordered his storming party to charge across the road. They came with a rush in close order, and were checked, at the point where the hedge had been levelled, by a withering fire from the loopholes and attic windows. Four men dropped. Two ladders reached the walls, one of them carried by a couple of men, who planted it, and then, finding themselves unsupported, ran back to the main body. Six men with the second ladder reached the wall, dropping a comrade on the way, and climbed it. The first man leapt gallantly down among the defenders and fell on the flags of the courtlage, breaking his ankle. The second, as he poised himself on the coping, was picked off by a shot from the attics and toppled backwards. The others stood by the foot of the ladder bawling for support.
But the momentary dismay of the main body had been fatal. Each man at the loopholes had two guns, and each pair an attendant to reload for them. Before the soldiers could pull themselves together a second volley poured from the loop-holes, and again three men dropped. One or two belated shots followed the volley, and a moment later the captain in command, as he waved his men forward, let drop his sword, clenched his fists high above him, and fell headlong in the roadway across their feet. Instinct told them that the course to which he had been yelling them on was, after all, the safest—to rush the road between two volleys and get close under the wall. Once there, they were safe from the marksmen, who could not depress their guns sufficiently to take aim. And so, with a shout, at length they carried the road; but too late to recover the first ladder, the foot of which swung suddenly high in air. This ladder was a tall one, overtopping the wall by several feet; and Pascoe, remembering the wain-rope lying beneath the ash tree, had run for it, cleverly lassoed its projecting top, and, with two men helping, jerked it high and dragged it inboard with a long slide and a crash.