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