The Earl and his men had rallied to Richard the Scrob, who called and signalled to them from Walter de Lacy's crupper. He headed straight for the forest of Haye. "Warily now," said he. "There is much bogland." He led them westward, skirting swamps, threading apparently impenetrable thickets, with scarcely a pause. They could hear faintly the voices of a few Englishmen who cursed as they wandered among the briary undergrowth. The hindmost of the Normans looked back and saw Ludford flaming, crumbling, and falling into ruins. "It is mine own secret path," their guide announced. "Verily, mon seignior, I have prepared for your coming." They left the forest behind them, and rode through the hamlet of Overton. "Look yonder!" said Richard, pointing to the grey gleam of a stone rampart among the trees surrounding his mansion. "What is this?" laughed the Earl. "Have ye licence from King William to erect a castle within his realm?" "I am King William's loyal subject," the Scrob replied. "Of a certainty, our King will not grudge a timely shelter to his Earl." A curtain-wall, roughly but strongly compacted of quarried stone, of wood, and of rubble, surrounded and concealed the timber dwelling of Richard and Alftrude; at the western end of the enclosure the unfinished keep loomed upon its mount; and about them both an eight-foot moat was drawn. "The keep as well!" cried fitzOsbern. "Oh, guileful notion, to colour it with pitch! Only the hawk-eyed may spy it from the valley, for the foliage embowers it--and, man, ye can surely keep watch therefrom for many a mile!" At a blast from Richard's horn, the drawbridge was lowered, and several Normans in his service appeared upon the threshold, mail-clad and fully armed. "It was four weeks building, under Geoffrey of Rouen," said Richard, "and the moat was digging thirteen days more. I have engines of war within, and great store of missiles of stone. Enter, bel sire. They will not find it easy to burn this my dwelling about my head."