And now they began
to heap up rocks in a mass of mortar against the wall on the
outside, till a steep slope guarded the whole of the lower part of
the castle against fire from any attacker if war should come that
way, in any of the centuries that were yet to be: and the deep
windows they guarded with bars of iron.
The shape of the castle showed itself clearly now, rising on each
side of the bowmen's cottage and behind it, with a tower at each
of its corners. To the left of the old cottage the main doorway
opened to the great hall, in which a pile of a few huge oaks was
being transformed into a massive stair. Three figures of strange
men held up this ceiling with their heads and uplifted hands, when
the castle was finished; but as yet the carvers had only begun
their work, so that only here and there an eye peeped out, or a
smile flickered, to give any expression to the curious faces of
these fabulous creatures of the wood, which were slowly taking
their shape out of three trees whose roots were still in the earth
below the floor. In an upper storey one of these trees became a
tall cupboard; and the shelves and the sides and the back and the
top of it were all one piece of oak.
All the interior of the castle was of wood, hollowed into alcoves
and polished, or carved into figures leaning out from the walls.
So vast were the timbers that the walls, at a glance, seemed
almost one piece of wood.
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