five lords instead of one.

It happened on a roaring night of March, when the wind was blustering
over the barren ocean of the east Downs, and Lionel was still a boy of
ten, but soon to be eleven, that the five brothers sat clustered about
the great hearth in the hall, roasting apples and talking of this and
that. But their talk was fitful, and had long pauses in which they
listened to the gusty night, which had so much more to say than they.
And after one of the silences Lionel shuddered slightly, and drawing
his little stool close to Hobb he said:

"It sounds like witches." Hobb put his big hand round the child's head
and face, and Lionel pressed his cheek against his brother's knee.

"Or lions," said Hugh, jumping up and running to the window, where he
flattened his nose to stare into the night. "I wish it were lions
coming over the Downs."

"What would you do with them?" said Hobb, smiling broadly.

"Fight them," said Hugh, "and chain them up. I should like to have
lions instead of dogs--a red lion and a white one."

"I never heard tell of lions of those colors," said Hobb. "But perhaps
Ambrose has with all his reading."

"Not I," said Ambrose, "but I haven't read half the books yet. The wind
still knows more than I, and it may be that he knows where red and
white lions are to be found. For he knows everything."

"And has seen everything," murmured Heriot, watching a lovely flame of
blue and green that flickered among the red and gold on the hearth.

"And has been everywhere," muttered Hugh. "If I could find and catch
him, I'd ask him for a red and a white lion."

"I'd rather have peacocks," said Heriot, his eyes on the fire.

"What would you choose, Ambrose?" asked Hobb.

"Nothing," said he, "but it's the hardest of all things to have, and I
doubt if I'd get it. But what business have we to be choosing presents?
That is Lionel's right before ours, for isn't his birthday next month?
What will you ask of the wind for your birthday, Lal?"

Then Lionel, who was getting very drowsy, smiled a sleepy smile, and
said, "I'd like a farm of my own in the Downs, a very little farm with
pink pigs and black cocks and white donkeys and chestnut horses no
bigger than grasshoppers and mice, and a very little well as big as my
mug to draw up my water from, and a little green paddock the size of my
pocket-handkerchief, and another of yellow corn, and another of crimson
trefoil. And I would have a blue farm-wagon no larg