his own use. 
The day drew to a close, and dusk began to set in, early though it was, nigh six o'clock.  I looked up from my vegetable packing in time to see my friend Mofat pushing through the crowd of quickly dispersing women, going home from market, and headed towards my cart. I straightened up, looking down slightly on his straggly, unkempt hair, as his lungs gasped for breath.  He panted for a full minute while I stared at him, assured that he brought bad news.
"Rachanóir," Mofat finally began, looking me in the face, while I could see a spark of fear in his eyes.  "There is a mob of people headed for Seigseur's with the intention to fight his guards, and kill him, to end the tyranny," he told me with little hint of emotion. His face was set but his eyes gave away his fear.  I knew his father was in the mob, ready to fight to the death for his family and son.  I blanched at the idea that men I had known all my life were now about to die for their families, but I realized their fear was no different than mine.
"Let's go, Mofat," I told him, clapping him on the shoulder.  "We can't let them fight for liberty alone.  Do you have weapons?" I asked him, searching my bag for the dagger I always kept with me. I knew my face must look pale, but also that my eyes were steady, although his eyelids flickered in fear at my words.  He nodded, "I told my father I was coming back with help."
We left my cart behind as we hurried to find the mob, following the flickering firelight from the men's torches.  I began to outline the problem to Mofat as we followed the mob.
  "Once we arrive outside the gate at Seigseur's the rest of the townspeople might try something rash, and we can't afford that.  We need to be organized, or at least as organized as a mob can be under these circumstances, so whatever we hear doesn't throw us into a frenzy and start a massacre."  I smiled in the dark at the irony of it all.  We would be fighting for the freedom to live on our land, and many more of us would die than those who would live on to own their land again.
              *             *            *

We all reached the magnificent walls of Seigseur's estate with a torch in one hand, and any weapon from a common pitchfork to the occasional single fire rifle to the rare sword in the other.  Many carried axes and hammers, but all of us carried a weight of hopelessness, that we would all be killed and the women and children back at town would be all alone to survive in another place without their husbands, sons, and brothers.  We were oddly quiet as I believe those same thoughts traveled through every man present at some time during that night.  Stopped at the gate, our heads as one, traveled upwards to a high balcony where candles were set, as if to hint.  To our left, a staircase hugged the gray stone wall in an attempt to hide itself, as a way to reach the balcony from the outside.  A rather weak barrier held us perhaps twenty feet from the point where stone and grass met at the base of the manor house.  At that moment, the incident I witnessed that morning returned to my mind. This time not an ominous shadow, I could feel the weightlessness of my body, and a feeling of terror, as I glimpsed an impossibly fast dark monster swoop down on me, as I swerved to stay out of its way.  Again, and I almost tumbled out of the air.  I racked my brain for a way to rid myself of the enemy, and in my frustration, I dove