"Clear off. Get home to father and then to the police."
"Yes. But you?"
"Clive and I will remain. I've discovered already that the stairs which once led to the first floor have fallen down. The floor's a very high one, and unless there is some easier way up elsewhere, where we haven't yet explored, those fellows wouldn't be able to get at us. That leaves us safe. While they're trying to get us down, you'll be off. See?"
"And you'll keep them trying till I can get the police. I've got it. Hooray!"
"Shut up!" commanded Bert.
Hugh showed wonderful obedience. He even looked admiringly at his brother, and that was very unusual with him. In fact, Hugh's conceit was large up to this moment. He was more than apt to lay down the law, especially where Bert was concerned. And now he had met his master. Where strength of character—real strength—was required, Bert had as if by magic suddenly become leader of the trio.
"Stay there and wait. Keep your eye open," he said. "Come on, Clive."
They went off across the old room, through the archway, and so to that other chamber across the floor beams of which lay the road to the gallery over the tumble-down chapel. What memories, what imaginations that old place brought up too! Clive recollected the tales he had so often read of times gone by when people lived in similar places, in fortified towers and castles. When strife between adjacent barons was frequent, almost incessant, when sudden raids were made, and when the surrounding people, the serfs and tillers of the soil, all who owed allegiance to one of the mighty barons, hastened, at the blowing of a horn, to the castle, driving maybe their cattle before them, and accompanied by their wives and children. He could see them here, massed in a huge square open place in the heart of the tower. He pictured himself as one of them—the sentry, in fact—perched on that high smaller tower on the roof to which they had ascended, peering out over the country and watching the blazing of the homesteads and the approach of the attackers. He closed his eyes, this imaginative Clive, and saw the galleries and roof and windows peopled by men-at-arms in leathern jerkins, armed with bows and arrows, or with clumsy arquebuses. Many, too, with huge halberds. There were others up on the roof, poising masses of rock on their shoulders, ready to hurl them down upon the enemy approaching the door. There too, amongst them, was the noble baron himself, with his spouse, while between them stood a trumpeter. He could see the envoy of the enemy approach on his horse, a white flag attached to his lance, could hear the flare of his trumpet summons, and his demand that the tower should be surrendered. And then, still with soaring imagination, he grew enthusiastic as he conjured up the haughty refusal of the baron, the first blows struck, the noise and shouts of the contestants.
"S—s—she! Go quietly. You'll let 'em hear us." Bert brought him suddenly to his senses, and perhaps it was as well that he did so, for at the moment Clive was balancing himself in the centre of one of the floor beams, wabbling somewhat giddily, and looking as if he might fall on to the massed-up debris down below, all that remained now of the massive floor on which the ancient occupants of this room had trodden. Yes, it was a place to conjure up all sorts of strange ideas. One could picture the huge oak table in the centre of this room, the rush mats on the floor, the forms and rough chairs round the huge, open fireplace. But Clive had dreamed long enough. It was strange indeed to hear of his dreaming. That was the sort of thing one expected of Bert. And here he was perfectly wideawake, the reverse of dreaming, as practical and unromantic as could well be imagined.
"S—s—she!" he whispered. "I heard 'em moving. Stop a bit. They may be listening."