While I stood in the hall, examining our defences, there came the thump, thump of the battering-ram from the other door leading to the courtyard. I laughed when I heard it, for the enemy might as well have tried to break in through a twelve-foot wall as through the barricade which he was now attempting. The door opened into a porch, and the porch was filled with heavy flagstones that we had hastily torn up from the scullery and pantry floor, and disposed in such a fashion that the whole formed a tight wedge between the door itself and the stout wall facing it on the inside. But secure as I felt about the door, I was not so sure of our ability to direct a smart fire upon the men engaged in battering it. I hastened to the window on the right hand side of the courtyard, and found that Holdsworth’s troopers, stationed in the barn, were keeping up such a fusilade upon us as rendered it impossible for my men to do more than get an occasional shot from a sharp angle of the casement. I accordingly withdrew them to the window on the other side, and from this point we did considerable execution, until Holdsworth brought up a number of men behind the low wall of the orchard that ran between the gable end of the house and the village street, and there directing their fire upon us, we were compelled to retreat to safer cover. However, the door remained as impregnable as that leading into the front garden, and presently the men drew off and there was an interval of peace, after which the fight was continued by the interchange of occasional shots on either side, both of us keeping a sharp lookout, and discharging our pieces whenever besieged or besiegers drew out of cover. And as we were in a much better position than they, we succeeded in effecting much damage amongst them at no cost to ourselves.
About the middle of the afternoon Captain Holdsworth himself was shot dead by Humphrey Stirk as he incautiously made across the garden, where he was evidently going to give orders to the men posted in the summer house. I was sorry to hear this news, for he had parleyed with me in the frankest manner, and had shown some solicitude for our position, but, after all, ’twas the fortune of war, and might have been my own fate, or Humphrey’s. However, there was no doubt that it made matters still more difficult for me, in one respect—if we managed to escape with our lives and fell into Fairfax’s hands, he would not deal any the more mercifully with me because one of his officers met his death in the effort to apprehend me.
We continued to exchange shots with the enemy until night fell, when a cessation of hostilities took place, save for an occasional fusilade when either side showed a light. That was a sad night, for everybody in the house knew that Sir Nicholas lay dead in our midst, and there was none that did not mourn him with much sincerity. As for me I was sore concerned as to what was to come, for I felt sure that Fairfax would eventually reduce us to submission, and the thought of what might then chance to Alison made me anxious. But here again I was somewhat helped by that curious fellow, Merciful Wiggleskirk, who came tapping in the darkness at the little window pane in the scullery, and bade Walter fetch me to him.
“You here again?” says I. “What is it, friend?”
“Master Coope,” says he, “you paid me nobly, and I’ll give you a hint. If you can get out o’ the house,” he says, “do so on the instant. Captain Blackburn is coming in the early morning with more men, and they are bringing cannon with them. Make your way out o’ the house during the night, Master Coope.”
He ran off across the fold, and I shut the window and stood musing in the dark scullery. If they were bringing cannon against us it was all over. “We shall have the old house heaped in ruins over us ere noon!” I says. But since I was not yet weary of life, I sought my cousin, intending to take counsel with her as to our next step.
| Chapter VI | Of my Remarkable Adventures with Gregory and our Fortunate Discovery, of Sir Nicholas’s Burial in his own House, and of my Flight with Mistress Alison. |