"Oh! we shan't be a minute," she declared. "Miss Frazer will wait for us in the wood, and we can run all the way from the farm."
Where Lindsay went Cicely always felt bound to follow; accordingly, she clambered up the ladder behind her friend, and in due course both arrived at the top. As Lindsay had supposed, they found a granary half-filled with sacks of corn and a pile of loose barley. A door at the farther end appeared to open on to a flight of steps leading outside, while opposite was a small lattice window overlooking the fields.
"There's really nothing to see," said Cicely. "It was hardly worth while coming, after all."
"We might go out through that door, instead of climbing down the ladder again," suggested Lindsay, beginning to walk round the sacks. "Why, look! Somebody has left his lunch here."
On the top of the barley was a tin can, and also a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, evidently containing slices of bread. From sheer idle curiosity Lindsay seized them, and showed them laughingly to Cicely.
"Will you have some afternoon tea?" she exclaimed in joke.
At that moment she was startled by a low growl behind her. From a corner of the room sprang a collie dog that, unobserved by them, had been lying among the sacks, and keeping a watch over its master's property.
Lindsay promptly replaced the tin and the handkerchief on the barley.
"Good dog! Poor fellow!" she said encouragingly, holding out her hand.
The dog, however, did not make the least response to her friendly advances. It came a little nearer, growling again, and showing its teeth in an ugly fashion.