Part 5 (1/2)
”Anybody. There's some more news, but you don't care.”
”No. I do not.”
”Why don't you go and live in the woods all by yourself?” said Oliver, in some heat.
Felix laughed.
”Tell me your news. I am listening.”
”The Irish landed at Blacklands the day before yesterday, and burnt Robert's place; they tried Letburn, but the people there had been warned, and were ready. And there's an envoy from Sypolis arrived; some think the a.s.sembly has broken up; they were all at daggers drawn. So much for the Holy League.”
”So much for the Holy League,” repeated Felix.
”What are you going to do to-day?” asked Oliver, after awhile.
”I am going down to my canoe,” said Felix.
”I will go with you; the trout are rising. Have you got any hooks?”
”There's some in the box there, I think; take the tools out.”
Oliver searched among the tools in the open box, all rusty and covered with dust, while Felix finished dressing, put away his parchment, and knotted the thong round his chest. He found some hooks at the bottom, and after breakfast they walked out together, Oliver carrying his rod, and a boar-spear, and Felix a boar-spear also, in addition to a small flag basket with some chisels and gouges.
CHAPTER III
THE STOCKADE
When Oliver and Felix started, they left Philip, the third and youngest of the three brothers, still at breakfast. They turned to the left, on getting out of doors, and again to the left, through the covered pa.s.sage between the steward's store and the kitchen. Then crossing the waggon yard, they paused a moment to glance in at the forge, where two men were repairing part of a plough.
Oliver must also look for a moment at his mare, after which they directed their steps to the South Gate. The ma.s.sive oaken door was open, the bolts having been drawn back at hornblow. There was a guard-room on one side of the gate under the platform in the corner, where there was always supposed to be a watch.
But in times of peace, and when there were no apprehensions of attack, the men whose turn it was to watch there were often called away for a time to a.s.sist in some labour going forward, and at that moment were helping to move the woolpacks farther into the warehouse. Still they were close at hand, and had the day watchman or warder, who was now on the roof, blown his horn, would have rushed direct to the gate. Felix did not like this relaxation of discipline. His precise ideas were upset at the absence of the guard; method, organization, and precision, were the characteristics of his mind, and this kind of uncertainty irritated him.
”I wish Sir Constans would insist on the guard being kept,” he remarked.
Children, in speaking of their parents, invariably gave them their t.i.tles. Now their father's t.i.tle was properly ”my lord,” as he was a baron, and one of the most ancient. But he had so long abnegated the exercise of his rights and privileges, sinking the n.o.ble in the mechanician, that men had forgotten the proper style in which they should address him. ”Sir” was applied to all n.o.bles, whether they possessed estates or not. The brothers were invariably addressed as Sir Felix or Sir Oliver. It marked, therefore, the low estimation in which the Baron was held when even his own sons spoke of him by that t.i.tle.
Oliver, though a military man by profession, laughed at Felix's strict view of the guards' duties. Familiarity with danger, and natural carelessness, had rendered him contemptuous of it.
”There's no risk,” said he, ”that I can see. Who could attack us? The Bushmen would never dream of it; the Romany would be seen coming days beforehand; we are too far from the Lake for the pirates; and as we are not great people, as we might have been, we need dread no private enmity. Besides which, any a.s.sailants must pa.s.s the stockades first.”
”Quite true. Still I don't like it; it is a loose way of doing things.”
Outside the gate they followed the waggon track, or South Road, for about half a mile. It crossed meadows parted by low hedges, and they remarked, as they went, on the shortness of the gra.s.s, which, for want of rain, was not nearly fit for mowing. Last year there had been a bad wheat crop; this year there was at present scarcely any gra.s.s. These matters were of the highest importance; peace or war, famine or plenty, might depend upon the weather of the next few months.
The meadows, besides being divided by the hedges, kept purposely cropped low, were surrounded, like all the cultivated lands, by high and strong stockades. Half a mile down the South Road they left the track, and following a footpath some few hundred yards, came to the pool where Oliver had bathed that morning. The river, which ran through the enclosed grounds, was very shallow, for they were near its source in the hills, but just there it widened, and filled a depression fifty or sixty yards across, which was deep enough for swimming. Beyond the pool the stream curved and left the enclosure; the stockade, or at least an open work of poles, was continued across it. This work permitted the stream to flow freely, but was sufficiently close to exclude any one who might attempt to enter by creeping up the bed of the river.
They crossed the river just above the pool by some stepping-stones, large blocks rolled in for the purpose, and approached the stockade. It was formed of small but entire trees, young elms, firs, or very thick ash-poles, driven in a double row into the earth, the first or inner row side by side, the outer row filling the interstices, and the whole bound together at the bottom by split willow woven in and out. This interweaving extended only about three feet up, and was intended first to bind the structure together, and secondly to exclude small animals which might creep in between the stakes. The reason it was not carried all up was that it should not afford a footing to human thieves desirous of climbing over.