I noticed that she was particularly impressed by the precarious tenure on which we hold the houses which our defective bodies require, and the uncertainty of many of us in obtaining a regular and sufficient supply of the very necessities of life itself and the consequent bitterness with which we regard a stranger who lays hands on anything to which we consider we have a prior claim. Realising this, she began to understand how those among us of the baser sort, who have more than sufficient for their own comfort, may yet persecute any who attempt to share it, without incurring the contempt or punishment of their fellows. Joined to this bitter resentment at any private theft, I had to exhibit the docility with which we allow ourselves to be robbed by legal process, and the immunity and respect enjoyed by those who are the instruments and beneficiaries of these extortions; and, as I showed it, I had to realise the fantastic inequity with which these impositions are levied, as, for instance, that a man who prefers salt shall pay less than one who eats sugar, or that one who keeps a dog shall pay more than one who keeps a pet of another species, or--an idea almost devilish in its lunacy--that a man shall pay more heavily because he provides a larger home, with the increase of young children who are dependent upon him. I reverted to the explanation that, while no king could have imposed this burden of taxation upon us, we were bewildered by the belief that it was of our own doing, and that this conviction acted as a paralysis.... The shaft struck the wall sharply, and rebounded to the floor beside us. CHAPTER XXIII THE ESCAPE It is the habit of mankind to depreciate the appliances of its ancestors, when it has superseded them with other contrivances. In our time, bows and arrows have become symbolic of futility among engines of war. Yet, before the introduction of gunpowder, the longbow was considered a weapon sufficiently formidable to threaten the whole order of feudalism, and it is at least doubtful whether stupidity alone, or a deliberate purpose, exposed the archers at Bannockburn, without the usual support of pikemen, to the charge of the Scottish horse. It is certainly true that a company of Crécy archers would have quickly cleared more than one of the Flanders trenches, which were too near for comfort, yet too far for a grenade to reach them, and too deep for the trajectory of a bullet. We had talked and slept and talked again as the long night continued, and had not noticed the first faint light that came slowly from a sun that rose to so prolonged a dawn, till the arrow fell rattling on the floor beside us.