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Updated: May 3, 2025
One dark winter's night, Kleerhagen, with fifty picked soldiers, advanced to the Antwerp gate of Bois-le-Duc, while Hohenlo, with his whole force, lay in ambuscade as near as possible to the city. Between the drawbridge and the portcullis were two small guard-houses, which, very carelessly, had been left empty.
Concealed among the fish were four logs of wood; two were three feet long, the full depth of the baskets, two were short wedge shaped pieces. Before the soldiers in front had time even to turn round, the two long pieces were placed upright in the grooves down which the portcullis would fall, while the two wedge shaped pieces were thrust into the jamb of the gate so as to prevent it from closing.
'Of course the holes go straight down into the gate-house that's for when the enemy has got past the door and the portcullis, and almost all is lost. Here, hand me the pot. He crawled on to the three-cornered window-ledge in the middle of the wall, and, taking the pot from Anthea, poured the water out through the arrow-slit.
Then, after a little parley, the drawbridge was lowered, and the portcullis was raised, and he rode with a great noise into the stone-paved courtyard of the castle.
But a portcullis, forty cubits high, and made to fit the intervening space exactly, suddenly sank before them like a rampart fallen from the skies. The Suffet's combinations had therefore succeeded. None of the Mercenaries knew the mountain, and, marching as they did at the head of their columns, they had drawn on the rest.
Between the slow ticking of the cogs I listened jealously for foreign sounds, and heard at length a gentle dripping across the breadth of the boathouse; that was the last of the "portcullis," as Raffles called it, rising out of the river; indeed, I could now see the difference in the stretch of stream underneath, for the open end of the boathouse was much less dark than mine; and when the faint band of reflected starlight had broadened as I thought enough, I ceased winding and groped my way down the steps into the boat.
The mounted men had all brought ropes with them, and, dismounting, eight yoked their horses to each gun, and in an hour the whole were brought up to the plateau, the drawbridge was lowered, the sacks of earth cleared away, and the portcullis raised, the gates thrown open, and the garrison filed into the courtyard, greeted by cries of welcome from the women.
Crowds of pages and horse-keepers were in the court, when, the portcullis being raised, and amidst the respectful salutes of the sentinels, the most ancient friend of the house of Godesberg entered into its castle-yard. The under-butler stepped forward to take his bridle-rein. "Welcome, Sir Count, from the Holy Land!" exclaimed the faithful old man.
Tarbox pronounced. "No fractious minorities here, to block the wheels of legislation!" The crowd burst into a roar at this significant remark, and, again abashed, dropped portcullis on its laughter, cutting off the flanks and tail of the sound. "Mr. Purtett, will you please conduct the Chairman to the Chair," says Bill, very stately.
The heavy gates were thrown back, the portcullis raised and the drawbridge lowered, and amid a parting cheer from the men-at-arms drawn up in the court in military homage to their queen, the cavalcade departed, attended only by the men of Ross, for the number of the garrison was too limited to admit of their attendance anywhere, save within and on the walls.
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