"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.
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