he
dogs. I heard the hall doors shut and open once or twice as men
passed in and out, and in the hall was the rattle of weapons as the
men took them from their places on the walls, but I heard no voices
raised more than usual. Then I got out of my bed and tried to open
the sliding doors that would let me out on the high place from my
father's chamber, where I always slept now, but I could not move
them. So I went back to my place and listened.

What was happening I must tell, therefore, as Owen has told me, for
I saw nothing to speak of.

As the horn was blown, one of the men who had been on guard came
into the hall hastily and spoke to my father.

"The house is beset, Lord. Stuf blew the horn and bade me tell you.
There are men all round the stockade."

"Outlaws?"

The man shook his head.

"We think not, Lord. But it is dark, and we cannot fairly see them.
We heard them call one 'Thane.' Nor are there any outland voices
among them, as there would be were they outlaws."

Then my father armed himself in haste and went out. The night was
very dark, and it was raining a little. Stuf had shut the stockade
gates, which were strong enough, and had reared a ladder against
the timbers that he might look over.

Close to the ladder stood Owen, armed also, for he had been out to
see that all was quiet and that the men were on guard.

"There are men everywhere," he said. "I would we had some light."

"Heave a torch on the straw stack," my father answered; "there will
be enough then."

The stack was outside the stockade, and some twenty yards from its
corner. One of the men ran to the hall and brought a torch from its
socket on the wall, and handed it to Stuf, who threw it fairly on
the stack top, from the ladder. It blazed up fiercely as it went
through the air, and from the men who beset us there rose a howl as
they saw it. Several ran and tried to reach it with their spears,
but they were not in time. The first damp straws of the thatch
hissed for a moment, dried, and burst into flame, and then nought
could stop the burning. The red flames gathered brightness every
moment, lighting up two sides of the stockading, in the midst of
which the hall stood. Then an arrow clicked on Stuf's helm, and he
came down into shelter.

"This is a strange affair, Master," he said. "I have seen three men
whom I know well among them."

"Who are they?"

"Wisborough men--freemen of Erpwald's."

My father and Owen looked at one an