avoiding the stables, brought them by devious ways to a thicket of
rhododendrons and broom. On all fours they travelled the length of
the place, and came to the edge where some forgotten gardeners had
once tended a herbaceous border. The border was now rank and wild,
and, lying flat under the shade of an azalea, and peering through
the young spears of iris, Dickson and Heritage regarded the
north-western facade of the house.

The ground before them had been a sunken garden, from which a
steep wall, once covered with creepers and rock plants, rose to a
long verandah, which was pillared and open on that side; but at
each end built up half-way and glazed for the rest. There was a
glass roof, and inside untended shrubs sprawled in broken
plaster vases.

"Ye maun bide here," said Dougal, "and no cheep above your breath.
Afore we dare to try that wall, I maun ken where Lean and Spittal
and Dobson are. I'm off to spy the policies.' He glided out of
sight behind a clump of pampas grass.

For hours, so it seemed, Dickson was left to his own unpleasant
reflections. His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly
comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease. The scramble up the
hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no
rebound in his soul to counter the conviction. He felt listless,
spiritless--an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the
back of it. He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding.
How on earth could he climb that? And if he did there would be his
exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some malevolent gentleman
among the trees. He reflected that he would give a large sum of