"Half an hour ago," said Heritage, consulting a wrist watch.

"It was him that keepit me waitin' so long. But he's safe enough
now, for five minutes syne he was splittin' firewood at the back
door o' his hoose....I've found a ladder, an auld yin in yon
lot o' bushes. It'll help wi' the wall. There! I've gotten my
breath again and we can start."

The ladder was fetched by Heritage and proved to be ancient and
wanting many rungs, but sufficient in length. The three stood
silent for a moment, listening like stags, and then ran across the
intervening lawn to the foot of the verandah wall. Dougal went up
first, then Heritage, and lastly Dickson, stiff and giddy from his
long lie under the bushes. Below the parapet the verandah floor was
heaped with old garden litter, rotten matting, dead or derelict
bulbs, fibre, withies, and strawberry nets. It was Dougal's
intention to pull up the ladder and hide it among the rubbish
against the hour of departure. But Dickson had barely put his foot
on the parapet when there was a sound of steps within the House
approaching the verandah door.

The ladder was left alone. Dougal's hand brought Dickson summarily
to the floor, where he was fairly well concealed by a mess of matting.
Unfortunately his head was in the vicinity of some upturned pot-plants,
so that a cactus ticked his brow and a spike of aloe supported
painfully the back of his neck. Heritage was prone behind two
old water-butts, and Dougal was in a hamper which had once contained
seed potatoes. The house door had panels of opaque glass, so the
new-comer could not see the doings of the three till it was opened,
and by that time all were in cover.