any force the law
was likely to bring up. The house had an abundant supply of arms. There
were guns that figured in '41, pikes that had done good service a little
later, swords of every shape, from the two-handed weapon of the twelfth
century to a Roman pattern made out of a scythe by a smith in
the neighbourhood; but the grand terror of the country was an old
four-pounder of Cromwell's time, that the Major had mounted on the roof,
and whose effects, if only proportionately injurious to the enemy to the
results nearer home, must indeed have been a formidable engine, for
the only time it was fired--I believe to celebrate Bob's birthday--it
knocked down a chimney with the recoil, blew the gardener and another
man about ten feet into the air, and hurled Bob himself through a
skylight into the housekeeper's room. No matter for that; it had a great
effect in raising the confidence of the country-people, some of whom
verily believed that the ball was rolling for a week after.

'Bob, I say, victualled the fortress; but he did more, for he assembled
all the tenants, and in a short but pithy speech told them the state of
his affairs, explaining with considerable eloquence what a misfortune it
would be for them if by any chance they were to lose him for a landlord.

'"See, now, boys," said he, "there's no knowing what misfortune wouldn't
happen ye; they'd put a receiver on the property--a spalpeen with
bailiffs and constables after him--that would be making you pay up
the rent, and 'faith I wouldn't say but maybe he 'd ask you for the
arrears."

'"Oh, murther, murther! did any one ever hear the like!" the people
cried on every side; and Bob, like a clever orator, continued to picture
forth additional miseries and misfortunes to them if such a calamitous
event were to happen, explaining at the same time the contemptible
nature of the persecution practised against him.

'"No, boys," cried he, "there isn't a man among them all that has the
courage to come down and ask for his money, face to face; but they set
up a pair of fellows they call John Doe and Richard Roe--there's names
for you! Did you ever hear of a gentleman in the country with names like
that? But that's not the worst of it, for you see even these two chaps
can't be found. It's truth I'm telling you, and some people go so far
as to say that there is no such people at all, and it's only a way they
have to worry and annoy country gentlemen with what they call a fiction