“You had better give up,” said old Mr. Gorsuch, after another while, “and come down, for I have come a long way this morning, and want my breakfast; for my property I will have, or I’ll breakfast in hell. I will go up and get it.”
He then started up stairs, and came far enough to see us all plainly. We were just about to fire upon him, when Dickinson Gorsuch, who was standing on the old oven, before the door, and could see into the upstairs room through the window, jumped down and caught his father, saying,—“O father, do come down! do come down! They have guns, swords, and all kinds of weapons! They’ll kill you! Do come down!”
The old man turned and left. When down with him, young Gorsuch could scarce draw breath, and the father looked more like a dead than a living man, so frightened were they at their supposed danger. The old man stood some time without saying anything; at last he said, as if soliloquizing, “I want my property, and I will have it.”
Kline broke forth, “If you don’t give up by fair means, you will have to by foul.”
I told him we would not surrender on any conditions.
Young Gorsuch then said,—“Don’t ask them to give up,—make them do it. We have money, and can call men to take them. What is it that money won’t buy?”
Then said Kline,—“I am getting tired waiting on you; I see you are not going to give up.”
He then wrote a note and handed it to Joshua Gorsuch, saying at the same time,—“Take it, and bring a hundred men from Lancaster.”
As he started, I said,—“See here! When you go to Lancaster, don’t bring a hundred men,—bring five hundred. It will take all the men in Lancaster to change our purpose or take us alive.”
He stopped to confer with Kline, when Pinckney said, “We had better give up.”