I was up at the Hoose afore it was light, and tried the door o'
the coal-hole. I doot they've gotten on our tracks, for it was
lockit--aye, and wedged from the inside."

Dickson brightened. Was the insane venture off?

"For a wee bit I was fair beat. But I mindit that the lassie was
allowed to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away
from the Garple. That was where she was singin' yest'reen. So I
reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place."
Sacred Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal
proceeded to make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil.
"See here," he commanded. "There's the glass place wi' a door into
the Hoose. That door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key,
for she comes there whenever she likes. Now' at each end o' the
place the doors are lockit, but the front that looks on the garden
is open, wi' muckle posts and flower-pots. The trouble is that
that side there' maybe twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet
and the ground. It's an auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and
it wouldn't be ill to sklim. That's why they let her gang there when
she wants, for a lassie couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."

"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.

The boy wrinkled his brows. "I could manage it mysel'--I think--and
maybe you. I doubt if auld McCunn could get up. Ye'd have to be
mighty carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were
sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a gun."

"Lead on," said Heritage. "We'll try the verandah."