I have bells attached to the shutters and doors to give me notice
of any attempt to enter. The night before last I was awoke by
hearing one of them ring, and looking out of the window made out
a crowd of two or three hundred men outside. They began to batter
the door, so, taking a brace of pistols which I keep in readiness
by my bed, I went down and took my place by the powder. When they
broke down the door and entered I just told them that if they came
any further I should fire my pistol into one of the barrels, the
head of which I had knocked out, and, as I suppose they saw that I
meant to do it, they went off. That is all I have to tell, so far
as I know."
The clerk's pen ran swiftly over the paper as Ned quietly made his
statement. Then there was a silence for a minute or two.
"And did you really mean to carry out your threat, Mr. Sankey?"
"Certainly," Ned said.
"But you would, of course, have been killed yourself."
"Naturally," Ned said dryly; "but that would have been of no great
consequence to me or any one else. As the country was lately about
to take my life at its own expense it would not greatly disapprove
of my doing so at my own, especially as the lesson to the Luddites
would have been so wholesale a one that the services of the troops
in this part of the country might have been dispensed with for some
time."
"Did you recognize any of the men concerned?"
"I am glad to say I did not," Ned replied.
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