She had not long to wait. That very evening she managed to slip out near the granary at dusk when the outside servants went home. Thomas slept in the hall, but she saw him going to the gate and talking to Andrew very quietly.
The moat ran round the east side of the Hall, but there was a narrow ledge of stone at the foot of the wall on that side, some eight feet above the water, which went from the northeast corner where the granary was, as far as the drawbridge. It was possible to climb on to it from the drawbridge and walk along it with some difficulty. What purpose it was intended to serve was not clear. The drawbridge was never drawn up till the last of the servants had departed. Andrew went outside, but dark as it was, Aline without coming near, saw that apparently he did not cross the bridge. Thomas ran back and made his way to the granary. Aline followed, her heart beating violently, and saw him produce a key and unlock the granary door. She waited a moment wondering which would be the best thing to do and then decided to go back to the drawbridge. She turned round and was just in time to see the dark figure of Andrew emerge from the left and cross the bridge with a heavy bundle on his shoulder and vanish into the night. It was all very quietly managed, he had evidently crept along the high ledge, and as Aline passed through the archway to the upper quadrangle she heard Thomas behind her breathing heavily, but she did not look round.
At first she thought that she would go and tell Master Mowbray at once, but then she hesitated. In those days it might be a hanging matter for Andrew and she also had some scruples about playing the part of an eavesdropper. She finally decided that she would speak to Andrew herself, but was very nervous about it; as Andrew was a great big man and from what she knew of him and from the way she had heard him speak to Thomas on the previous night, she guessed that he would stop at nothing.
She watched for him the next day, but no opportunity presented itself. He was always with the other servants. But late in the evening she saw him in the quadrangle evidently waiting for Thomas. She was shaking with excitement and the darkness added to her nervousness, but she approached him and said in as steady a voice as she could muster, “Andrew, I want to speak to you. It is something very serious; there has been grain taken from the granary.”
“What of that?” he replied, determined to brazen it out.
Aline had hoped that her point blank assertion would have made him confess at once and the way would have been easier for her; it was very difficult to go on with this great burly bullying ruffian scowling at her. However, her mind was made up and she had to go through with it. “I know who has taken it,” she said firmly, “and I want you to promise me that you will not take any more and that also you will replace as much as you have taken away.”
“Oh, do you, my fine young lady? You are not the mistress of this Hall, not by a long way, I reckon. Who are you indeed? A penniless Scot that no one would listen to. I should like to see you go with your tales to Mistress Mowbray. She’d soon turn you upside down and spoil that pretty skin of yours,” he growled coarsely.
“But I shall find it my duty to tell Master Mowbray,” said Aline.
“Oh, that is the way the land lies, you miserable tell-tale, is it?”