At each barrier there was a cottage and a guard-room, though, as a matter of fact, the watch was kept in peaceful times even more carelessly than at the inner gates of the wall about the House itself.  Much the same plan, with local variations, was pursued on the other estates of the province, though the stockade at the Old House was remarkable for the care and skill with which it had been constructed.  Part of the duty of the watchman on the roof was to keep an eye on the barriers, which he could see from his elevated position.

In case of an incursion of gipsies, or any danger, the guard at the barrier was supposed to at once close the gate, blow a horn, and exhibit a flag.  Upon hearing the horn or observing the flag, the warder on the roof raised the alarm, and assistance was sent.  Such was the system, but as no attack had taken place for some years the discipline had grown lax.

After crossing on the stepping-stones Oliver and Felix were soon under the stockade which ran high above them, and was apparently as difficult to get out of as to get into.  By the strict law of the estate, any person who left the stockade except by the public barrier rendered himself liable to the lash or imprisonment.  Any person, even a retainer, endeavouring to enter from without by pole, ladder, or rope, might be killed with an arrow or dart, putting himself into the position of an outlaw.  In practice, of course, this law was frequently evaded.  It did not apply to the family of the owner.

Under some bushes by the palisade was a ladder of rope, the rungs, however, of wood.  Putting his fishing-tackle and boar spear down, Oliver took the ladder and threw the end over the stockade.  He then picked up a pole with a fork at the end from the bushes, left there, of course, for the purpose, and with the fork pushed the rungs over till the ladder was adjusted, half within and half without the palisade.  It hung by the wooden rungs which caught the tops of the stakes.  He then went up, and when at the top, leant over and drew up the outer part of the ladder one rung, which he put the inner side of the palisade, so that on transferring his weight to the outer side it might uphold him.  Otherwise the ladder, when he got over the points of the stakes, must have slipped the distance between one rung and a second.

Having adjusted this, he got over, and Felix carrying up the spears and tackle handed them to him.  Felix followed, and thus in three minutes they were on the outer side of the stockade.  Originally the ground for twenty yards, all round outside the stockade, had been cleared of trees and bushes that they might not harbour vermin, or thorn-hogs, or facilitate the approach of human enemies.  Part of the weekly work of the bailiffs was to walk round the entire circumference of the stockade to see that it was in order, and to have any bushes removed that began to grow up.  As with other matters, however, in the lapse of time the bailiffs became remiss, and under the easy, and perhaps too merciful rule of Sir Constans, were not recalled to their duties with sufficient sharpness.