It was some ten yards across, and surrounded by a wall twelve feet high, with a square turret at each corner.
Everything was roughly constructed, although massive and solid.

With the exception of the door, and the steps leading to it, no wood had been used in the construction.

The very beams were of rough stone, the floors were of the same material.

It was clearly the object of the builders to erect a fortress that could defy fire, and could only be destroyed at the cost of enormous labour.
This was indeed a prime necessity, for the hold stood in the wild country between the upper waters of the Coquet and the Reed river.
Harbottle and Longpikes rose but a few miles away, and the whole country was broken up by deep ravines and valleys, fells and crags.
From the edge of the moorland, a hundred yards from the outer wall, the ground dropped sharply down into the valley, where the two villages of Yardhope lay on a little burn running into the Coquet.
In other directions the moor extended for a distance of nearly a mile.
On this two or three score of cattle, and a dozen shaggy little horses, were engaged in an effort to keep life together, upon the rough herbage that grew among the heather and blocks of stones, scattered everywhere.
Presently the lad caught sight of the flash of the sun, which had but just risen behind him, on a spearhead at the western edge of the moor.
He ran down at once, from his post, to the principal room.
"They are coming, Mother," he exclaimed.

"I have just seen the sun glint on a spearhead." "I trust that they are all there," she said, and then turned to two women by the fire, and bade them put on more wood and get the pots boiling.
"Go up again, Oswald; and, as soon as you can make out your father's figure, bring me down news.