HOUSE ATTACK. 131 



CHAPTER XXII. 

 Conversation A Brave Resistance The Contrast The Burglary. 



*' WELL, I like a man to keep his word/' said my relative ; 

 " and I admire your friend Morden prodigiously for his punc- 

 tual attendance on Mr. Bulger, when he made his parting bow 

 to an admiring multitude, and, as the song goes, ' died with 

 his face to the city.' " 



" There is little danger, after all," said the Colonel, "to 

 be apprehended from ruffian force, if a man's nerve and cool- 

 ness desert him not at the pinch. In house attacks, the odds 

 are infinitely against the assailants, The attempt is generally 

 made in the dead of night ; a robber- party are never suffi- 

 ciently organized to combine their efforts judiciously, and 

 two men within, if properly armed and plentifully supplied 

 with ammunition, are in my opinion an overmatch for a dozen 

 outside the doors." 



" Calm and steady courage does wonders, certainly ; and, 

 even when surprised and unprepared, a cool man will rarely be 

 left without some means of defence. The Scotch proverb is a 

 true saw ' A gleg (ready) hand never wanted weapon/ " 



"There never was a better illustration of that truth than 

 the heroic resistance offered by an aged gentleman in the south 

 to a band of ruffians, under most discouraging circumstances. 

 I knew him intimately," continued the Colonel ; " and I'll 

 briefly give you the story. 



" Several years ago, when the south of Ireland was, as it 

 has ever been within my memory, in a disturbed state, a 

 gentleman advanced in years lived in a retired country-house. 

 He was a bachelor ; and whether trusting to his supposed popu- 

 larity, or imagining that the general alarm among the gentry was 

 groundless, he continued in his lonely mansion long after his 

 neighbours had deserted theirs for a safer residence in town. 

 He had been indisposed for several days ; and on the night he 

 was attacked had taken supper in his bedroom, which was 

 on the ground-floor, and inside a parlour with which it com- 

 municated. The servants went to bed ; the house was shut 

 up for the night ; and the supper- tray, with its appurtenances, 



K 2 



