“Well, we’ll have to be jolly careful,” said Jack, who also didn’t want to wait for hours for the tide. “I’ll go first as usual and see that all’s clear.”
They all went up the eighteen steps into the cellar. Jack slipped up the steps to the scullery. No one was there. He could hear voices in the kitchen, but he guessed that the maids there were having their tea.
Everything was quiet. Jack gave a low whistle and the others came up the steps quietly. They tiptoed to the back door, where a row of empty milk-bottles stood, waiting for the milkman.
And then they saw something that filled them with dismay! Two big Airedale dogs were roaming about the garden!
“Look!” whispered Jack. “They’ll never let us pass. I’d forgotten that they’d got dogs to guard the place.”
Nora looked as if she were going to cry. First it was the tide that stopped them - and now it was two dogs.
“Do you think they’d hurt us if we tried to slip out of the grounds?” said Peggy.
“No,” said Jack, “but they’d bark the place down, and we’d be found at once. Wait a minute whilst I think what to do.”
“Ay, ay, Captain!” said Mike. The others waited obediently. Jack was always good at thinking of ideas when they were in a fix.
“I know what,” said Jack at last. “We’ll go into this little wash-house here and hide behind that heap of sacks. They must call in the dogs when a tradesman comes, or they wouldn’t get any goods. Well, we’ll wait till someone comes - the milkman or the baker - and as soon as the dogs are called in, we will slip out! We won’t go down the back path, we’ll make for that tree over there and climb it. I believe we could drop on to the top of the wall from its branches and get down the other side quite safely.”