Thus then it fared with these people.
But now that we have told of the folks with whom the Dalesmen had
kinship, affinity, and friendship, tell we of their chief abode,
Burgstead to wit, and of its fashion. As hath been told, it lay upon
the land made nigh into an isle by the folds of the Weltering Water
towards the uppermost end of the Dale; and it was warded by the deep
water, and by the wall aforesaid with its towers. Now the Dale at
its widest, to wit where Wildlake fell into it, was but nine furlongs
over, but at Burgstead it was far narrower; so that betwixt the wall
and the wandering stream there was but a space of fifty acres, and
therein lay Burgstead in a space of the shape of a sword-pommel: and
the houses of the kinships lay about it, amidst of gardens and
orchards, but little ordered into streets and lanes, save that a way
went clean through everything from the tower-warded gate to the
bridge over the Water, which was warded by two other towers on its
hither side.
As to the houses, they were some bigger, some smaller, as the
housemates needed. Some were old, but not very old, save two only,
and some quite new, but of these there were not many: they were all
built fairly of stone and lime, with much fair and curious carved
work of knots and beasts and men round about the doors; or whiles a
wale of such-like work all along the house-front.
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