The cordiality of my fellow-countrymen also provided me with another disturbed night at Aghadoe, which I had leased from Lord Headley. To quiet the apprehensions of my family, and also to relieve the mind of the D.I. from anxiety about my tough old self, there were always five police in the house, and two on sentry duty all night. On this particular date, about two o'clock in the morning, we were aroused by hearing shots fired in the wood below the house, the plan of the miscreants being to draw the police away from the house. As this did not succeed, a second party began a counter demonstration in another quarter. The theory is that a third party wanted to approach the house from the back in the temporary absence of the constabulary, and disseminate the house, its contents, and the inhabitants into the air and the immediate vicinity by the gentle and persuasive influence of dynamite. However, the police were not to be tricked, and soon the fellows, having grown apprehensive, or having exhausted all their ammunition, were heard driving _off_. Signs of blood were found on the road towards Beaufort next morning, so the attacking force suffered some inconvenience in return for giving us a bad night. Lord Morris, among a group of acquaintances in Dublin, pointing to me, said:-- 'That's the Jack Snipe who provided winter shooting for the whole of Kerry, and not one of them could wing him.' 'Mighty poor sport they got out of it,' I answered, 'and I have an even worse opinion of their capacity for accurate aiming than I have of their benevolent intentions.' Other people know more of oneself than one does, and I was much interested to hear that, in this year of grace, the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_ said of me:-- 'Sam Hussey, yes, that's the famous Irishman they used to call "Woodcock" Hussey, because he was never hit, though often shot at.' I always thought 'Woodcock' Carden had the monopoly of the epithet, but am proud to find I infringed his patent. I was benevolently commended by a vituperative ink-slinger, Daniel O'Shea, in his letter to the _Sunday Democrat_ in 1886, but none of those he blackguarded were in the least inconvenienced by 'the roll of his tongue,' as the saying is:--