And across it waited our few, silent and ready for its falling.
I heard all this in the closed chamber, and the red light of the fire shone across the slit whence the light and fresh air came into it, but it was too high for me to look out of.

I got up and dressed myself then, for no reason but that I must be doing something.

I waxed excited with the noise and flickering light, and no one came near me.

My old nurse was the only woman in the house, for the married house-carles lived in the village, and I daresay she slept through it all in her own loft.

There was no thunderstorm that could ever wake her.
At this time my father sent a few of the men to the back of the house, that they might try at least to keep off the foe from climbing the stockade and so falling on them in the rear.