"He speaks true enough there, my lord," said Rumbold grimly.
"Yes, yes," gasped the poor man in tones of relief; "Master Rumbold—he'll answer for me I speak nothing but the truth. Mistress Sheppard—she's always the last in the place to go to bed. She likes—that's what she says, my lord—likes to see all safe first. And sure as a gun, she's posted outside there in the passage. And—and if the whole—whole gang of us goes swarming out by the door here, like bees out of a hive, she'll be following us to see what we're after—and—and—"
"Quite true," nodded Rumbold; "and by midday the whole parish will be twittering the tale."
The wrong way out.
"Oh, these women!" groaned Howard; "they must always be meddling. Well, what's to be done, then? Shall we go hunting in couples, or one at a time?"
"'Tis not to be risked," said Sheppard, shaking his head. "You see, my lord—saving your lordship's presence and yours, gentlemen"—he added, blinking his small eyes uneasily round on the circle of his guests, who had risen to their feet, impatient to begin the search, "Mistress Sheppard doesn't seem to have taken much of a fancy, so to speak, to a man-jack of the lot of you. Don't like the looks o' you, she says. And I'd sooner be a mouse within sight of our cat Tiger than havin' Mistress Shep—Sheppard—"
"Smell a rat," rather ruefully laughed Howard. "Well, what's the remedy?"
"This," said Lee, who, having left the group collected near the door, now stood beside a broad lattice, looking from a recess near the hearth into the garden, and commanding a view of the bridge. "It gives upon the bowling-green, and then down by the slope to the water. Out with you!" and unhasping the lattice pane as he spoke, he pushed it open. "Only, for your lives, step softly, softly!" and he placed his finger warningly on his lips.
What has become of it?
"This way," whispered Walcot, when, in less than three minutes' time, the whole party, including the limping Rumsey, stood out upon the velvet smooth turf On they crept, in single file, till they stood upon the edge of the shelf of tall bracken, where, stooping down, they dispersed along the bank close down by the water's brink. "'Twas just hereabouts," said Walcot in a loud whisper. "There! there! Stop a bit. No. Now I think on't, 'twas of course farther along—close by the barge."