Robin Hood's Barn 



Here, knee-deep among the brackish pools or 

 at their ease among the meadow bowlders, the 

 enemy, a tribe of Holsteins, are encamped. Their 

 concern apparently is in their cud, and you would 

 never guess that they were laying siege. There 

 is not even speculation in their mild glance. ' It is 

 demurely innocent of all design and speaks 

 placidity, not patience. If, however, you go far- 

 ther through the orchard and look over its tum- 

 bling barricade, you wiU see a narrow wavering 

 path that is the sign of their imceasing vigilance. 

 What time that path is worn I have never made 

 discovery. I cannot catch my adversaries at their 

 spying. But I suspect on starlit nights they 

 keep their scouts on duty, beating their way 

 among the bayberries until at last they come 

 upon a breach. For usually it is at dawn that I 

 hear a blast of bellowing which is the signal of 

 an onslaught, or a triiunphant proclamation of 

 success. 



Unarmed and unaccoutered, I leap to the en- 

 counter, and as I plunge through dripping grass 

 with hoe or rake already couched for combat, my 

 anger rises high against my landlord who is 



[2l8] 



