Robert was able to send his telegrams very easily.

After supper some of them walked through the churchyard (which has a very
curious sun-dial in it) to the meadows beyond, in search of the castle, the
site of which is mentioned on the map, but is quite undiscoverable now;
while Robert made friends with an old labourer smoking his pipe outside the
great tithe barn, and asked him about the road up Bredon' as it was his
project to sleep on the very top of the hill the next night.

But the old man changed their plans completely; for he convinced Robert
that the Slowcoach would never get to the top without at least two more
horses to help, and even then it would be an unwise course to take, because
there was no proper road, and it might be badly shaken.

It was therefore arranged that the older and stronger children should take
their lunch to the top of the hill and eat it there, and that Kink, with
Hester and Gregory, should go round the hill? which rises all alone from
the plain like a great sleeping monster, on the flat roads, and meet them
on the other, or south side, at Beckford, in the afternoon; and they should
then go on for five or six miles farther to their campingground near
Oxenton.

The night was uneventful except for a rather startling visit from a
peacock, which stood just inside the boys' tent and uttered such sounds as
only a peacock can.

Both parties started early the next morning. Gregory and Hester, being for
the first time alone as owners of the Slowcoach, were very proud and
excited, and Gregory insisted upon Janet giving him two shillings in case
of any emergency, although Kink had plenty of money. The nice old women in