“What in time did you wait up there for? Why don't you come down?”
“I can't. Kenelm's locked the doors, and the keys are right next to his room door. I can't get down.”
Here was an unexpected obstacle. Caleb was nonplused.
“Go home!” wailed the voice from above. “Don't stand there. Go HOME! Can't you SEE it ain't any use? Go HOME!”
Five minutes before he received this order Mr. Hammond would have been only too glad to go home. Now he was startled and angry and, being angry, his habitual stubbornness developed.
“I shan't go home neither,” he whispered, fiercely. “If you can't come down I'll—I'll come up and get you.”
“Shh—shh! He'll hear you. Kenelm'll hear you.”
“I don't care much if he does. See here, Hannah, can't you get down nohow? How about that window? Can't you climb out of that window? Say, didn't I see a ladder layin' alongside the woodshed this mornin'?”
“Yes, there's a ladder there, but—where are you goin'? Mr. Hammond—Caleb—”
But Caleb was on his way to the woodshed. He found the ladder and laboriously dragged it beneath the window. Kenelm Parker had a local reputation for sleeping like the dead. Otherwise Mr. Hammond would never have dared risk the noise he was making.