The Stockade

: WILD ENGLAND

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 passage

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 massive 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 assist 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

titles. Now their father's title 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 noble in the

mechanician, that men had forgotten the proper style in which they

should address him. "Sir" was applied to all nobles, 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 title.



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 assailants must pass 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 grass, 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 grass. 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.



The smooth poles by themselves afforded no notch or foothold for a

Bushman's naked foot. They rose nine or ten feet above the willow, so

that the total height of the palisade was about twelve feet, and the

tops of the stakes were sharpened. The construction of such palisades

required great labour, and could be carried out only by those who could

command the services of numbers of men, so that a small proprietor was

impossible, unless within the walls of a town. This particular stockade

was by no means an extensive one, in comparison with the estates of more

prominent nobles.



The enclosure immediately surrounding the Old House was of an irregular

oval shape, perhaps a mile long, and not quite three-quarters of a mile

wide, the house being situated towards the northern and higher end of

the oval. The river crossed it, entering on the west and leaving on the

eastern side. The enclosure was for the greater part meadow and pasture,

for here the cattle were kept, which supplied the house with milk,

cheese, and butter, while others intended for slaughter were driven in

here for the last months of fattening.



The horses in actual use for riding, or for the waggons, were also

turned out here temporarily. There were two pens and rickyards within

it, one beside the river, one farther down. The South Road ran almost

down the centre, passing both rickyards, and leaving the stockade at the

southern end by a gate, called the barrier. At the northern extremity of

the oval the palisade passed within three hundred yards of the house,

and there was another barrier, to which the road led from the Maple

Gate, which has been mentioned. From thence it went across the hills to

the town of Ponze. Thus, anyone approaching the Old House had first to

pass the barrier and get inside the palisade.



At each barrier there was a cottage and a guard-room, though, as a

matter of fact, the watch was kept in peaceful times even more

carelessly than at the inner gates of the wall about the House itself.

Much the same plan, with local variations, was pursued on the other

estates of the province, though the stockade at the Old House was

remarkable for the care and skill with which it had been constructed.

Part of the duty of the watchman on the roof was to keep an eye on the

barriers, which he could see from his elevated position.



In case of an incursion of gipsies, or any danger, the guard at the

barrier was supposed to at once close the gate, blow a horn, and exhibit

a flag. Upon hearing the horn or observing the flag, the warder on the

roof raised the alarm, and assistance was sent. Such was the system, but

as no attack had taken place for some years the discipline had grown

lax.



After crossing on the stepping-stones Oliver and Felix were soon under

the stockade which ran high above them, and was apparently as difficult

to get out of as to get into. By the strict law of the estate, any

person who left the stockade except by the public barrier rendered

himself liable to the lash or imprisonment. Any person, even a retainer,

endeavouring to enter from without by pole, ladder, or rope, might be

killed with an arrow or dart, putting himself into the position of an

outlaw. In practice, of course, this law was frequently evaded. It did

not apply to the family of the owner.



Under some bushes by the palisade was a ladder of rope, the rungs,

however, of wood. Putting his fishing-tackle and boar spear down, Oliver

took the ladder and threw the end over the stockade. He then picked up a

pole with a fork at the end from the bushes, left there, of course, for

the purpose, and with the fork pushed the rungs over till the ladder was

adjusted, half within and half without the palisade. It hung by the

wooden rungs which caught the tops of the stakes. He then went up, and

when at the top, leant over and drew up the outer part of the ladder one

rung, which he put the inner side of the palisade, so that on

transferring his weight to the outer side it might uphold him. Otherwise

the ladder, when he got over the points of the stakes, must have slipped

the distance between one rung and a second.



Having adjusted this, he got over, and Felix carrying up the spears and

tackle handed them to him. Felix followed, and thus in three minutes

they were on the outer side of the stockade. Originally the ground for

twenty yards, all round outside the stockade, had been cleared of trees

and bushes that they might not harbour vermin, or thorn-hogs, or

facilitate the approach of human enemies. Part of the weekly work of the

bailiffs was to walk round the entire circumference of the stockade to

see that it was in order, and to have any bushes removed that began to

grow up. As with other matters, however, in the lapse of time the

bailiffs became remiss, and under the easy, and perhaps too merciful

rule of Sir Constans, were not recalled to their duties with sufficient

sharpness.



Brambles and thorns and other underwood had begun to cover the space

that should have been open, and young sapling oaks had risen from

dropped acorns. Felix pointed this out to Oliver, who seldom accompanied

him; he was indeed rather glad of the opportunity to do so, as Oliver

had more interest with Sir Constans than himself. Oliver admitted it

showed great negligence, but added that after all it really did not

matter. "What I wish," said he, "is that Sir Constans would go to Court,

and take his proper position."



Upon this they were well agreed; it was, in fact, almost the only point

upon which all three brothers did agree. They sometimes talked about it

till they separated in a furious temper, not with each other but with

him. There was a distinct track of footsteps through the narrow band of

low brambles and underwood between the stockade and the forest. This had

been made by Felix in his daily visits to his canoe.



The forest there consisted principally of hawthorn-trees and thorn

thickets, with some scattered oaks and ashes; the timber was sparse, but

the fern was now fast rising up so thick, that in the height of summer

it would be difficult to walk through it. The tips of the fronds

unrolling were now not up to the knee; then the brake would reach to the

shoulder. The path wound round the thickets (the blackthorn being quite

impenetrable except with the axe) and came again to the river some four

or five hundred yards from the stockade. The stream, which ran from west

to east through the enclosure, here turned and went due south.



On the bank Felix had found a fine black poplar, the largest and

straightest and best grown of that sort for some distance round, and

this he had selected for his canoe. Stones broke the current here into

eddies, below which there were deep holes and gullies where alders hung

over, and an ever-rustling aspen spread the shadow of its boughs across

the water. The light-coloured mud, formed of disintegrated chalk, on the

farther and shallower side was only partly hidden by flags and sedges,

which like a richer and more alluvial earth. Nor did the bushes grow

very densely on this soil over the chalk, so that there was more room

for casting the fly than is usually the case where a stream runs through

a forest. Oliver, after getting his tackle in order, at once began to

cast, while Felix, hanging his doublet on an oft-used branch, and

leaning his spear against a tree, took his chisels and gouge from the

flag basket.



He had chosen the black poplar for the canoe because it was the lightest

wood, and would float best. To fell so large a tree had been a great

labour, for the axes were of poor quality, cut badly, and often required

sharpening. He could easily have ordered half-a-dozen men to throw the

tree, and they would have obeyed immediately; but then the individuality

and interest of the work would have been lost. Unless he did it himself

its importance and value to him would have been diminished. It had now

been down some weeks, had been hewn into outward shape, and the larger

part of the interior slowly dug away with chisel and gouge.



He had commenced while the hawthorn was just putting forth its first

spray, when the thickets and the trees were yet bare. Now the May bloom

scented the air, the forest was green, and his work approached

completion. There remained, indeed, but some final shaping and rounding

off, and the construction, or rather cutting out, of a secret locker in

the stern. This locker was nothing more than a square aperture chiselled

out like a mortice, entering not from above but parallel with the

bottom, and was to be closed with a tight-fitting piece of wood driven

in by force of mallet.



A little paint would then conceal the slight chinks, and the boat might

be examined in every possible way without any trace of this hiding-place

being observed. The canoe was some eleven feet long, and nearly three

feet in the beam; it tapered at either end, so that it might be

propelled backwards or forwards without turning, and stem and stern

(interchangeable definitions in this case) each rose a few inches higher

than the general gunwale. The sides were about two inches thick, the

bottom three, so that although dug out from light wood the canoe was

rather heavy.



At first Felix constructed a light shed of fir poles roofed with

spruce-fir branches over the log, so that he might work sheltered from

the bitter winds of the early spring. As the warmth increased he had

taken the shed down, and now as the sun rose higher was glad of the

shade of an adjacent beech.