down to the river too, but he could not find clay anywhere; so he came
back and asked the gardener. The gardener said that a farmer was having
a field drained close by, and the men were digging out lots of clay. So
Dick went down to the field and filled his trug with clay, and then he
made another journey to the river for fine sand. However, he did not
find it easy to mix up the clay properly; for it was lumpy and hard,
and when he put water to it, it was sticky. But, after a time, he got
some mixed with the sand into a stiff paste, and then he was ready to
try his hand at making a pot. He made several attempts at shaping the
clay into a cup and tried to mould up the sides, using a flat stick
and a smooth little stone that he had picked up by the river. But he
did not succeed very well, as the clay was apt to break or get out of
shape, and several times he squeezed it all up and began again. At last
he contented himself with making quite a small cup which he could mould
into shape with his fingers, pinching it and trimming it very carefully
with his wooden tool. This one seemed good; so he made another a little
larger, and then set them aside while he made a fire.
He collected a quantity of chips and sticks, and soon had a bright fire
burning. After it had burned for about twenty minutes and made some hot
ashes, Dick pushed the fire to one side, and set the cups upside down
on the hot place. It was not easy to build up the fire again, because
it had fallen away and was nearly out; and when he put on fresh fuel,
the smoke got in his eyes. Also he poked his best cup with a big stick
that he was putting on the fire, and dented its side; but it was too
late to mend that, and he went on stoking up. He kept the fire going
till he thought the pots must have become red hot among the ashes,
and then he let it die down. He wondered whether he might try to get
the cups out before they were cool; but he decided that it was best to
leave them until the whole thing had cooled down. Just then, Joe and
David came back, without any fish, and when they had heard what Dick
had been doing, and had seen the fire, they all went in to tea.
When they came out after tea, they found the ashes still quite hot; but
they got a garden rake and raked them off, and there were the two cups
baked light brown and quite hard. The one that had been damaged was
also much cracked; but the other one was sound except for one little
crack, though it was not very shapely. Dick took it off to show to
Uncle John.
“That’s a good one,” said Uncle John, “but if you had let them dry
longer before putting them into the fire, they wouldn’t have cracked;
and then you have forgotten something: what is it?”
Dick looked at his cup, but he could not tell what it was that he had
forgotten.
“Why, the ornament,” said Uncle John. “When we pay that visit to the
British Museum, you will see that the pottery of the old time always
had ornament on it--or very nearly always. And I suppose you found it
hard to make a bigger one? I daresay anybody would until he had had a
great deal of practice. Even the old people that we have been reading
about, who were so clever at making pots, had to build up their big
ones on a wicker frame.
“There is something very interesting about the wicker-work frames, and
you ought to remember it. It is this--baskets were made before pottery.
In the very early days, before people could make pottery at all, they
had, at any rate, rude sorts of baskets. And, I daresay, they sometimes
tried to warm their food in baskets beside the fire. No doubt the
baskets often caught fire and the food was spoiled. Then some woman who
had her wits about her thought of daubing the basket with clay to make
it resist the fire. The next thing was to plaster the clay inside the
basket instead of outside, and next to burn the wicker off altogether;
and so, in course of time, they learned how to make vessels of clay
without any framework at all, except for the very large ones.”
That evening they spent some time making their bows. David was making
his out of the stem of an ash sapling that the gamekeeper had given
him; but Joe had got a branch of real yew for his and was whittling it
down with great care. Dick’s father had sent him a set from London--a
bow made of hickory with a stout gut bowstring, half a dozen arrows,
and a bracer to wear on his left wrist as a protection from the string
when shooting. It was very useful to have these to copy from; but Dick
was not content to have only a ready-made bow, and he also got a good
ash stick and set to work to make one for himself.
_Chapter the Twenty-third_
_THE STORY OF TIG: How Tig made Friends with the Lake People_
THE men of Garff’s village were masters of all the land round about.
They had the ground that they had cleared of trees for growing corn,
and the open spaces on the hills where their cattle fed: and beyond,
they had their hunting-grounds in the forests and over the moors, for
miles and miles around. It was not often that any of them travelled
beyond the bounds of their own ground, unless they were making a
journey, such as Garff and his party undertook when they went to buy
flints from Goba, the spearmaker.
One day in the summer, when Garff and Tig and some of the others were
away on a hunting expedition in the forest a long way from the village,
Tig wandered away alone into the woods; for there had been a big hunt
for two days before, and the men were all resting in the camp, while
the women cut up the meat. Tig had no need to kill any game, but he
liked to be in the woods watching the ways of the wild creatures,
especially the birds; and on that day he had not taken any weapon
except a light spear. When he had gone some distance, he sat down to
rest and watch. In front of him was a thicket of holly trees; and
presently he heard a jay in the hollies, jarring and scolding as jays
do when they spy an enemy. So Tig kept still and watched. Then the jays
set up a loud screech and flew across towards the tall trees; and then
Tig saw a dog come out into the open, followed by a lad. The lad gazed
around him and then went back among the trees; but his dog had scented
Tig, and it began to bark and growl, bounding out into the open. So
Tig stood up and called to the lad, who at once turned round and came
forward. They went towards one another and made a sign of peace, and
then the lad begged Tig to help him, for he said that he was in great
trouble. Close by, his father was lying wounded and unable to move;
and he could neither help his father home, nor yet leave him to go and
bring help from their village.
“Are you then far from your village?” Tig asked.
“Well-nigh a day’s journey,” said the lad. “We are of the Lake People
and dwell over yonder among the hills. And yesterday we were out, my
father and I, looking to some traps, when we came upon the fresh track
of a roe-buck. So we followed the track and came upon five bucks,
away down below there; and my father shot and wounded one. But it was
lightly hit and got away from us, so we set the dog on its trail and
followed it even here. And after all it escaped us; but what is worse,
my father fell down a rocky place near by, just when we thought we had
got our buck safely. And he is sorely hurt and has lain here all night;
for I could not leave him, nor was there anyone to help us.”
So Tig followed the young man in among the bushes, and there he saw
the man lying, covered with a skin cloak. He told Tig that his name
was Dobran, and when Tig told him his name, he said, “I have heard of
thy people and have even visited thy village long ago. This is a sore
mischance that has befallen me; but truly we should have taken warning!
For as we came forth yesterday, Feannog, the grey crow, croaked at us
thrice, and a fox crossed our path in the woods: and these be evil
omens both. But now if thou wilt in great kindness help my son to get
me home, thou shalt have a warm welcome from my people, and I will try
to reward thee in any way thou mayst desire.”
So Tig and the youth, whose name was Gaithel, planned how they might
help the wounded man. They cut down two young trees for poles and slung
the skin cloak upon these, to make a sort of litter, and on this they
laid Dobran, and then lifted it and carried it between them. The way
was rough and difficult, and they made very slow progress with their
heavy burden; but at last, after a long climb up a wooded hill-side,
they came out upon the top of a ridge overlooking a deep valley. In the
bottom of the valley there was a lake, surrounded by thick woods, and
near to one side of the lake a little island. The island was covered
with huts, and joining it to the shore there was a kind of pier or
gangway. Also Tig saw, what he had never seen before, a canoe on the
water, and some people paddling about in it.
Then the wounded man pointed and said:
“See, yonder is our village where we dwell.”
“Do you keep cattle on the island?” Tig asked, for he could see a man
driving cows along the gangway.
“Yes,” said Dobran, “we house the beasts there too. Sorely crowded
are we, and there has been talk this long while of some of the folk
going away and building a village on a lake that we know of, two days’
journey from hence.”
“Is there, then, another island in the other lake, like this one here?”
“Island! Nay, none--and here is no island! What thou seest yonder our
fathers, that were before us, built long ago. For they felled timbers
and staked them on the bottom of the lake and builded their houses
thereon, and dwelt there, even as we dwell.”
When they came to the waterside, they laid the wounded man down on the
ground. Then Gaithel put his hands to his mouth and gave a peculiar
call, and the people in the canoe heard it and came quickly to the
shore. They lifted Dobran in and paddled away with him to the landing
place; and Gaithel and Tig walked beside the shore and along the
gangway. When they got to the village, they were met by a crowd of the
Lake people; for Dobran had spread the news of how Tig had helped him,
and all the people were eager to welcome the stranger who had shown
kindness to one of themselves. But Gaithel took Tig at once to the hut
where Dobran was lying. His wife had already bound up his injured limb,
and she was then preparing supper; and she brought food and set it
before them, broiled fish and porridge and curds. After supper many of
Dobran’s friends came into the hut to see him, and they stayed chatting
with him till late; but at last they all went home, and the household
settled down to sleep.
_Chapter the Twenty-fourth_
_How Tig saw the Lake People’s Village_
ON the next day, Gaithel took Tig and showed him the village; and Tig
saw what he had taken to be an island was really a large and solid
platform made of tree-trunks laid close together. There was a paling
of stakes at the edge of the platform next the water, all round; and
within the paling were the huts, built close together side by side in
rows with narrow alleys in between, and sheds for the cattle, built of
poles and wattled and daubed with clay like the huts. Besides their
cattle the Lake People had some sheep, which they prized greatly on
account of the wool, from which the women span yarn for weaving into
cloth. At the place where the gangway joined the platform there was a
gate of bars in the paling, and also a rough stairway going down to the
canoes that were drawn up alongside. In an open place in the middle of
the village was a fire burning on a large open hearthstone; and Gaithel
said that nowhere else on the island was anyone allowed to have a fire,
for fear of burning down the huts. In another place was a shoot for
rubbish, to which the people had to bring their household refuse and
tip it into the lake. Then Gaithel took Tig down to the landing stage,
and showed him the canoes that were moored there; “I know someone who
would like to see these canoes of yours,” said Tig. “He is a man in our
village, called Crubach. He is lame. He makes troughs in the same way
as you make canoes, by burning out a tree trunk, only of course they
are much smaller; my mother has one to dip hides in when she is curing
them.”
[Illustration: Making a Canoe]
“My uncle is making a canoe in the wood now,” said Gaithel. “He has
been at work on it for weeks and weeks. Shall we go and see him at it?”
So they went together into the wood where Gaithel’s uncle was at work.
He had felled a stout oak tree and had got a portion of the trunk cut
off. This was to be his canoe, and he had already begun to shape it
fore and aft and to hollow it out. He had a little fire of dry chips
and sticks burning in one place on the top of the log; and in another
place, where he had had the fire burning the day before, he was hacking
away at the charred wood with his stone axe. There was another man at
work with him, and this man was hacking at the bows of the canoe; but
his axe would not make a deep cut in the hard oak wood, and he was
getting on very slowly.
Gaithel’s uncle left off work to speak to Tig. He stood up and wiped
his face which was all hot and grimy.
“My boat will be a beauty when she is finished;” he said, “a rare one!
Have you any like her in your village?”
“We haven’t any boats in our village,” said Tig.
“What--no boats? How do you do to get on the water then?”
“We haven’t any water,” said Tig, “at least not a lake--only a pond.”
“Well, yours must be a strange village! No lake and no boats! However,
your men must be spared some heavy work if they don’t make dug-outs;
though, look you, a man may make five or six bark canoes or wicker
canoes in less time than it takes him to make one dug-out. But then a
log canoe will outlast you four of the other, let alone being a deal
more comfortable. So never mind the labour and the sweat, say I; make a
good dug-out.”
Then he took up his axe and went to work again.
Then Gaithel took Tig back to the lake, and they got into a canoe and
rowed on the lake. In the canoe was a spear with a long, fine-pointed
head made of bone, barbed on both sides. This, Gaithel said, was a
fish-spear; and he showed Tig how it was used in spearing large fish
when the Lake People used their drag-net. The nets were kept at home,
so that the women might see that they were kept properly mended.
“But when we are fishing,” said Gaithel, “we have the net weighted
at the bottom with stones to sink it, and the one end is held up in
one canoe and the other in another, and the canoes paddle in ashore,
dragging the net between them. Then some of us wade out into the water,
and spear the fish or catch them with our hands if we can, and then the
net is drawn in closer until we get the rest, but sometimes some of
them get away.”
Then Gaithel took Tig back to the hut, and he stayed to talk to Dobran,
and told him that he thought the village a very wonderful place; and
he asked Dobran why it was that the fathers of the Lake People built
their village on the water.
“Why,” said Dobran, “they built it thus that they might be safe from
the attacks of wild beasts and from their enemies. As I told thee, they
made the platform first, felling trees in the woods and piling them
here, before ever they could set one pole of a hut. And with great
labour they did this, building as large as they could; but even so, the
space is too small.
“We are sorely crowded, as I said before; and now some of the younger
men choose rather to build huts on the shore, hard by, where we have
our cornland and the pasture for the cattle; though we who are older
like the old ways best. Of course the wolves and such like are not
so much to be feared as they were in our fathers’ days; and as for
enemies--why, we have lived in peace many years and perhaps we have
naught to fear. Nevertheless, I promise thee, if enemies should come
to fight us, the folk who have built their houses and their byres and
their sheepfolds away on the land there, with naught but a stockade
around them, would speedily flee for shelter to our stronghold here on
the water.”
Dobran’s wife, who was sitting beside her husband, was busily spinning
yarn; and when Dobran had finished speaking, she began to hum a song as
she drew the thread. She had a big bunch of wool fastened to the end
of a stick beside her, and she drew out some hair from the wool and
twisted it into a thread between her thumb and finger. Then she tied
the end of this to the spindle, which was a pointed stick loaded about
the middle with a ball of dried clay, and started twirling it round
with her other hand. As the spindle went spinning round in the air, and
dropping towards the ground, it drew the thread out longer, twisting it
all the time. As soon as the spindle reached the ground, Dobran’s wife
picked it up, wound the thread round it and set it spinning again; and
so she went on until she had spun a good ball of yarn.
Outside the hut a daughter of Dobran’s, whose name was Eira, was
sitting at the loom weaving cloth. Her loom was an upright wooden
frame, and the main threads, called the warp, were stretched from the
top of the loom to the bottom and kept taut by means of stone weights.
In her hand Eira held a shuttle containing the cross-thread, called
the woof, which she passed in and out through the warp, from side to
side of the loom. After she had worked in five or six cross-lines in
this way, and so had got a narrow piece of cloth woven, she stopped and
picked up a thin, flat piece of wood, cut into teeth like a comb, and
combed the web and pressed it down firmly. Her thread was finer and her
cloth better than the women made in Tig’s village, and he stood and
watched her. “Aye,” said Dobran, “she is a famous weaver. She shall
give thee a girdle of her own weaving. Nay, now, she shall weave
thee a shirt of three colours, and thou shalt come again and fetch it
for thyself.”
[Illustration: Weaving at the Loom]
On the next morning Tig rose early, and found that Dobran’s people were
already astir. Eira and another girl were grinding corn on a big, flat
rubbing stone; and afterwards Eira took the meal that they had ground
to make cakes for breakfast.
Then, after they had eaten the morning meal, Tig bade farewell to his
friends, the Lake People, and set off homeward. Some of the men paddled
him ashore in a canoe, and guided him through the woods and set him on
the way; and he returned to his father’s camp.
[Illustration]
_Chapter the Twenty-fifth_
_DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: A Talk about Ancient Lake-Dwellings_
WHEN Uncle John had finished reading, he asked the boys if they had
ever heard before of people living in houses with water all round as a
defence against their enemies?
“Yes, if you mean a single house,” Dick said, “you told me that your
house here once had a moat all round it.”
“Yes,” said Uncle John, “so it had; and though the village of the Lake
People was built many hundreds of years before ever there was a house
like mine in all the country, yet the notion was the same. In the old
days men felt safer with deep water all round them, than when there
was only a stockade, or even a wall. The villages by the lakes in
Switzerland that I told you of before, were built in that way over the
water on piles.”
David wanted to know how the Lake People had managed to support the
platform on which the huts were built--was it held up by straight
piles, like a table with a lot of legs?
“No,” said Uncle John, “not in Dobran’s village, anyway. I will tell
you what I know about it. Some time ago a farmer who lives near here
had a boggy place on his farm. It lay in a hollow among his fields, and
in winter or after a great deal of rain it became almost a lake. People
used to say that once upon a time there had been a lake there, but it
had got filled up with moss and peat. However, the farmer wanted to
turn it into ploughing-land, so he set to work to drain it; his men dug
drains and ran off all the water, and then they saw a large, low mound
standing up out of the mud. And when they came to clear the mound away,
they found that it was the remains of an ancient lake village that had
lain hidden in the bog under the water for hundreds of years. I heard
about it, so I went, and stayed all the time, day after day, while
they were digging out the remains; and so I got a good notion of how
those old people, that we have been reading about, used to make their
lake-villages in this part of the country--for in other places they had
other ways.”
“What did you find?” the boys all asked.
“Well, we didn’t find any huts; they had all gone to decay long before;
but the great platform of tree-trunks was there, and its foundations
and parts of what had been the gangway to the shore. And we found the
old rubbish-heap, and we picked over and sifted every bit of it; and I
will show you an arrow-head and some beads, and some pieces of pottery,
that I picked out of the rubbish myself. In this rubbish were great
numbers of bones of animals that the people had used for food. The
bones were of deer and cattle and sheep and some of smaller animals,
and some of birds. But the greatest find of all was a canoe. We found
it lying buried in the mud, wonderfully preserved. We could see that it
had been made, like Robinson Crusoe’s boat, out of the trunk of a tree,
and hollowed out by fire, and hewn with stone axes.
“And the mound was cleared away from top to bottom, and very hard work
this was; for it was solidly built of tree-trunks laid in rows like the
sheaves in a corn-stack: there were hundreds of trees, though none of
them very large. Then there were piles driven in upright to hold the
others together, and great stones that had been sunk to keep the beams
down: and at the bottom of all were bundles of brushwood and more large
stones, which had been put down first for the foundations. And if you
bear in mind that the people of the lake-village had had to chop down
all those trees and lop off the branches with their stone axes, which,
as Joe reminded us, were not the best sort of cutting tools, and bring
every faggot and every stone and every beam across the water in their
canoes, you will see it must have been a great piece of work for them.
The farmer and his men had a stiff job to pull the mound to pieces and
clear it away; but these old people, we may be sure, had a much harder
task in building it.”
Joe said that, perhaps, they floated out the tree-trunks on the
water--that would be easier than putting them on the canoes.
“That’s right,” said Uncle John. “When they had got the foundation
of stones and faggots laid, they made rafts of the trees and towed
them out and loaded them up with stones and so sank them upon the
foundations; and then laid more trunks on these, until they got to the
right height above the water.”
“Did you find any other things in the rubbish heap?” David asked.
“We found some bone harpoons for spearing fish, and a number of objects
of stone, such as weights for sinking fishing nets, and some that were
used, perhaps, as whorls for twisting thread in spinning, and some
beads of jet and a number of bone needles; but not many arrows, and
only two or three axe-heads, one of which was broken.”
“Why didn’t you find more weapons?” David asked; “I expect the people
had many more, hadn’t they?” “I expect they had,” said Uncle John, “but
I’m afraid I can’t tell you why no more were found. Perhaps the people
went away to live somewhere else and took their belongings with them.”
“I wish we had been there when you were digging at the mound,” Dick
said. “I suppose there isn’t another one anywhere about?”
“No,” said Uncle John. “I’m afraid there isn’t another one.”
_Chapter the Twenty-sixth_
_THE STORY OF TIG: How the Old Chief Died_
NOW it happened, when they all came home again from the hunting camp,
that the old chief of the village fell ill. Caerig was his name, but
the people always called him Old Chief, for he had been the head man of
the village for many years, and they all honoured him because he had
been a clever hunter in the past days and a brave fighter.
The women of the village attended to him in his sickness, and tried to
cure him with the medicines made from wild plants which they gathered
in the woods; but the medicines did no good, and Old Chief grew worse.