Of the safety of the door which gave access from the courtyard to the house I had little fear; but there were three other doors which caused me some uneasiness. To the front of the house, looking towards Barnsdale and the south, there was a great door which opened into my uncle’s flower-garden; on the right hand, opening out of the room in which he kept his dried herbs, was a smaller one through which he often passed to walk along a sheltered path; on the left-hand, opening out of the scullery, there was a door into the stable-yard. Now Anthony Dacre knew all these doors as well as I did, and would obviously select the weakest for his point of attack. The first thing to do, then, was to strengthen each of them. To this we at once set to work, bringing down great bedsteads, heavy chests, and whatever loose wood we could find in the house, and piling it up in such a fashion that if pressure were brought to bear on it from without, it would but drive our barricades tighter against the stout walls within. But this done, a great difficulty presented itself to my mind--all these doors being flush with the several walls in which they were built how could I place my men where they might command them? I had found that easy in the case of the courtyard door, because two sides of the house overlooked it, but it was impossible as regarded the other three doors, and all I could do was to post men at the corner windows of the second floor with orders to fire on the enemy if they appeared to be approaching the doors with mischievous intent.