stood where the large one had been.

"Capital, Peter. Now, I'll take the cloak, and you keep the pistol,
and now for a run home--not that I'm afraid of that coward getting
up a pursuit. He'll be only too glad to get his head under the
bedclothes."

Rhoda had carried out her brother's instructions with great exactness,
and was in a great fright when her aunt came in to see her in bed,
lest she should notice that the window was open. However, the night
was a quiet one, and the curtains fell partly across the blind, so
that Miss Scudamore suspected nothing, but Rhoda felt great relief
when she said good-night, took the candle, and left the room. She had
had hard work to keep herself awake until she heard her aunt come up
to bed; and then, finding that she did not again come into the room,
she got up, fastened one end of the rope ladder to a thick stick long
enough to cross two of the mullions, let the other end down very
quietly, and then slipped into bed again. She did not awake until
Hester knocked at her door and told her it was time to get up. She
awoke with a great start, and in a, fright at once ran to the window.
Everything looked as usual. The rope ladder was gone, the window was
closed, and Rhoda knew that her brothers must have come in safely.

Great was the excitement in Warley next day, when it became known that
the schoolmaster had been robbed of his watch by a giant fully eight
feet high. This height of the robber was, indeed, received with much
doubt, as people thought that he might have been a tall man, but
that the eight feet must have been exaggerated by the fear of the
schoolmaster.