ntolerable tyranny under which the
land still groans. All this occurred upward of sixty years ago.

"It only remains to add that Dominus, or, more colloquially, Dom
Gillian, still lives, albeit he must be verging upon ninety years of
age. For many years he has not been seen in the field, and it is even
asserted that he no longer takes active part in the councils of the
Doomsmen. Be that as it may, his will still remains dominant to animate
and direct the malign powers created by his wicked genius. And the evil
that men do, doth it not live after them?

"Such is the world, or, rather, one infinitesimal portion of the cosmos,
in the year 2015, according to the ancient calendar, or 90 since the
Terror."

IV

THE MAN ON HORSEBACK

Gavan of the Greenwood Keep was a prosperous man according to the
standard of these latter days, and his estate was reckoned to be the
largest and finest holding in all the western country-side. A man might
walk from break of day until darkness and yet not complete the periphery
of its boundary-lines, but the palisaded portion included only the
arable land and home paddocks and was of comparatively limited extent.
Viewed from a bird's-eye elevation, this stockaded enclosure appeared to
be laid out in the shape of a pear, the house being situated near the
small end. The greatest length of the area thus enclosed was a mile and
a half, and it was three-quarters of a mile wide at the big or southern
side, tapering down to a couple of hundred yards at the northern
entrance or barrier.

A quarter of a mile back from the north gate stood the keep, not one
distinct building, but rather several, built in the form of a hollow
square and consolidated for mutual protection. The principal entrance,
the one at the northern end, was called the water gate, for it should be
explained that the keep stood on the bank of the Ochre brook and access
was only possible by means of a drawbridge. Some day Sir Gavan intended
to turn the course of the stream so as to carry it around the keep and
thereby secure the protection of a continuous moat. But hitherto other
duties had seemed more pressing, and the plan was still in abeyance.

Entering through the covered way of the water gate, with guard-room and
bailiff's office to the right and left, one found himself in the
court-yard, some fifty yards in the square. On the right were the
cow-barns, horse-stalls, granaries, tool-houses, and store-buildings,
while