“What does he say!” said the doctor.
“Says he’ll come down if I’ll let go.”
“Don’t you trust him, sir,” cried Dan’l excitedly.
“I do not mean to,” said the doctor. “Will you come down quietly?” he shouted.
There was another murmur.
“Says ‘yes,’ sir,” cried Peter.
“Then, look here,” said the doctor, “you hold him tight, and you,” he continued to the gardener, “climb up on that beam and push off a few tiles. Then you can draw him down through there.”
“All right, sir,” cried Dan’l; and as Peter held on to the leg, the old gardener, after a good deal of grunting and grumbling, climbed to his side, and began to let in daylight by thrusting off tile after tile, which slid rattling down the side of the roof into the leaden guttering.
The opening let in so much daylight that the appearance of the old loft was quite transformed, but the group on the worm-eaten beam was the principal object of attention till just as Dan’l thrust off the fourth tile, when there was a loud crack, a crash, and gardener, groom, and their prisoner lay in a heap on the floor of the loft, while pieces of lath and tile rattled about their heads.
The old tie had given way, and they came down with a rush, to the intense astonishment of all; but the distance to fall was only about five feet, and the wonder connected with the fall was as nothing to that felt by Helen and her father, as the smallest figure of the trio struggled to his feet, and revealed the dusty, soot-smeared face of Dexter, with his eyes staring wildly from the Doctor to Helen and back again.