But he was too stout of heart to back out, or even to show any signs of flinching, as his sublimity proceeded to give him his instructions.
Each member had brought a sheet with him. These were quickly converted into a rope, which reached from the window of the arch-room to the ground.
Stuffing the pillow-slip into his pocket, and putting on his shoes, Charlie, amid the whispered commands of his companions—to "Be sure and fill the pillow-slip," "Don't call the dogs bad names," "Give the compliments of the order to the squire if you happen to meet him," and other inspiring injunctions—climbed carefully out of the window, and let himself down hand over hand to the ground.
Pausing only to kiss his hand circus-fashion to the faces at the window, he hastened off noiselessly over the dew-laden grass in the direction of the squire's orchard.
He knew his route well enough, and the distance was not quite half-a-mile, so that a few minutes' quick walking brought him to his destination.
The Ribston mansion stood well back from the road, and the orchard lay to its rear.
Charlie therefore thought it well to leave the road before he reached the gate, and to take a slant through the fields that brought him up to the orchard fence about fifty yards behind the house.
Here he crouched down, and listened, with strained ears and throbbing pulses, for the slightest sound that might indicate the proximity of a dog. But not a growl, or bark, or even sniff, broke the clover-scented stillness.
As it chanced, he had hit upon a particularly favourable night for his enterprise, the good squire being wont to spend his Friday evenings with admirable regularity at Doctor Aconite's, where the genial rector of St. David's and important Judge Surrebutter helped to make up a quartette that could play whist by the hour without so much as winking.
For the sake of company on the way home the squire always took his dogs with him, so that until his return, which was never later than eleven o'clock, the Ribston premises were entirely unguarded.