Then followed an anxious council of war. Besides our two selves, there were my lady and three maid-servants in the house. Mistress Gorman was too nervous and delicate to count upon for help, but the maids were all three sturdy wenches. So our garrison was five souls, and, counting the two guns I had brought, there were eight stands of arms and ammunition to match in the house.
The danger to be feared was not so much from the invaders’ shooting as from the possibility of their carrying out their threat to fire the house. Our only hope seemed to lie in frightening them off at the onset by as formidable a show of resistance as possible. Failing that, we should have to protect ourselves as best we could.
Fortunately we could at least prevent their surrounding the house; for by closing and barricading the garden doors on either side, all approach would be limited to the water-front, unless a very wide circuit was made outside the grounds. The drawing-room in which the family usually spent their evenings was on the first floor at this side, and here no doubt the enemy would direct their first attack.
I therefore resolved to have the candles lit as usual and to keep the blinds up, so as to give no hint that we were forewarned of their visit.
Below, on the ground-floor, there were two windows on either side of the door, with shutters in which we bored some hasty loopholes, at each of which we could station one of our party. And the more effectively to keep up an appearance of being in force, I placed a loaded gun, pointed towards the door, on the outer wall at each side, which, by an arrangement of string attached to the triggers, I should be able to let off from within, and so give the party the discomfort of believing themselves taken in the rear.
For the rest, we removed everything inflammable, such as curtains and bedding, as far from the windows as possible, and trusted to a supply of well-filled buckets stationed in every room to help us in case of fire. And as an additional defender against a forcible entry from any unexpected quarter, I brought Con the dog (who seemed to understand all that was going forward) into the house, and stationed him in the hall.
By the time these preparations were all complete it was quite dark, and I knew we might expect our visitors at any moment.
I begged Miss Kit to see her mother disposed of in an apartment as far from the point of danger as possible, while I lit the candles in the drawing-room, and stationed the maids at their posts in the darkened hall below.
My little mistress came to the drawing-room to report her task done.
“If you are not afraid,” said I, “it would be well to move about in this room near the window for a little, so as to let ourselves be seen by any one who approaches. They may be in view of us already.”