Rade Hazz Dumfugs

He had an idea that his intuition of alarm might be associated with some ember of it igniting the mat of rushes that encircled that culinary arena but none such smouldered thereupon. Indeed the fire, no more than a grumble of sparks around black and scarlet ruins, was scarcely capable of spitting forth flame. Beyond the makeshift hearth lay only the great table and the bed, both articles drowned in the gloom of the nether reaches of the long barrow house. Neither could be presumed capable of any threat. The twisted furs and white sheets of the bed seemed ghost grey in the low light and Hewler was once more troubled by erotic considerations, this time from memory.

Glancing back to his wife he saw from her clenched features that Nerrapal engrossment in the tapestry weaving was of that type into which any interruption would be far from welcome. Most particularly pleas for carnality from a pestering spouse would be positively disrespected. Hewler resolved to try his luck at dusk, a time that conjugal rights might be claimed with some anticipation of, if not actual enthusiasm, then at least glum compliance.

With a rough sigh rumbling the membranes of his throat he rose and donned a pair of floppy leather tubes limned with plentiful dust and tied by laces of twine so as to resemble boots. These were reinforced along the sole with stuffing of dried grasses which was tricky to arrange in the correct alignment, obliging Hewler to stand upon one leg for rather longer than his temper could endure quietly. When eventually shod he wandered forward a few steps emerging into the glare of sunlight. Herein he stood, enjoying the warmth of it upon that central portion of his hirsute chest not covered by the leather waistcoat. He smoothed down his brown kilt around brawny legs and scanned the wider scene now spread before him.

The whole place was enrapt in idyllic rusticity, with no anomalous worries to be seen. Yet something was amiss, a Farmer is never wrong when a certainty burns in his bowels like this one did. Clicking his tongue in displeasure at the happy sight Hewler looked around with the air of a captain scouting enemy terrain. To his left was another barrow identical to the one he had just left, it being seen from the side only as a grassy hillock from which signs of the artifice of man were almost absent save for a certain linearity of form. A large wooden double door at the narrow end was a more certain betrayer of the buildings unnatural origin but that could not be seen from Hewlers position. This place was primarily a shed for the night-berthing of the Purdhumpers but an upper chamber had been erected therein where a night guard might sleep in times of trouble.

Old Gaujan occupied this cosy nook, not so much through any genuine worries about the livestock but as a convenient ploy for removing that aged person from the general sleeping arrangements. Not only was his nocturnal presence a serious bar to any freedom of copulation but his snoring was of such a timbre that even the thunder had to knock politely and inquire if he might not lower the volume so that its peals be heard. Add to this the mans fantastically frequent visits to the dung hole of a night and sudden urgent concerns regarding rustlers spiriting the herd away by night had become a necessity! Towards this end Hewler had invented rumours of a notorious group of hardened bandits, men whose burglaries could only be prevented by the presence of an elderly and rather frail man sleeping in the arena they intended for their depredations. This curiously skittish band of marauders had never been known to trouble Hewlers farm; a fact that was of course attributed the continued presence of Gaujan.