gate again, though for the present he did not dare to stay; and
stooping, almost creeping, over the open lawn and the bed of lilies, he
began to work his way homeward by the wall, and through old borders
where the thickest trees and shrubs had always grown.

At last, after pushing on for a little distance, he paused to rest in a
clump of fir-trees, one of which had been dead for so many years that
all its twigs and smaller boughs had decayed and dropped to the ground.
Only the large branches, gaunt and skeleton-like, were left standing,
and in a fork between two of these and quite within his reach, in a lump
of soft felt, or perhaps beaver, he noticed something that glittered.
Peter drew it away from the soft material it was lying among, and looked
at it. It was a sort of gold band--perhaps it was gold lace, for it was
flexible--he had often heard of gold lace, but had not seen any. As he
drew it away something else that depended from a morsel of the lump of
rag fell away from it, and dropped at his feet. It might have been some
sort of badge or ornament, but it was not perfect, though it still
glittered, for it had threads of gold wrought in it. "This is almost in
the shape of an anchor," said Peter, as he wrapped the gold band round
it, "and I think it must have been lost here for ages; perhaps ever
since that old uncle Mortimer that I saw was a little boy."

So then with the piece of gold band wrapped round his hand he began to
press on, and if he had not stopped to mark the places where two or
three more nests were, he would have been quicker still.

On and on, how dangerously delightful his adventure had been! What would
become of him if he could not get down to-morrow?

On and on, his heart beat with exultation; he was close to the steps and