The boy approached, wary but swift. Out here on the open plain there was no cover. He was exposed as a fly on a sheet of paper. Still things couldn't be worse—he comforted himself with that most comfortable of thoughts.
Some two hundred yards from the cottage a ruined wall ran across the greensward. Behind it the boy took cover and spied.
The cottage was very small; yet, small as it was it was grim to a degree. The flint in rows, tier upon tier, grinned at him fiercely, reminding him of a dog showing its teeth. The colour of steel, the rows of set teeth, the shaggy roof of thatch, the flag ruffling it from the chimney, all bespoke the same sturdy fighting character. Indeed it was so small, and yet so truculent, that Kit laughed to see it.
Chained there a dumb watch-dog on the threshold of its country, it seemed to be saying as it crouched—
"You can all go to sleep: I'm watching."
Kit crossed the wall, and almost expected to hear the cottage growl.
Warily he approached. As he did so, the warrior aspect of the cottage grew upon him. It was less a cottage than a tiny fort. There were only three windows, one on each side the door, and a dormer. The lower windows though latticed were cross-barred; and the door of massive oak, iron-studded, was heavy enough for a castle. Through it, ajar, he caught the gleam of arms.
Certainly this was no peasant's cottage. What was it then?—a signal- station?—
There was no flag-staff, no signal-tackle.
Some lonely smuggler's hold?—not likely: for there was the flag.