After the close of the day's business, therefore, he paid a visit to the vault and arranged to start upon their expedition that very night.
Thus it happened that we find the "Bats" leaving the wall in the manner described just as the clock of old Trinity rings out the hour of twelve.
"Now, then, where's de place?" asked Barney, as the four boys hurried along New Church street in the direction of the Rector street station of the Sixth avenue elevated road.
"It's at Fort Washington," replied Frank—"a good mile beyond the 155th street station. Up the steps, boys, and we'll start at once. Remember, Barney, if I succeed in this undertaking and in clearing my name before the world the 'Bats in the Wall' will never have occasion to regret their kindness to me."
An hour later the little party moving along the Fort Washington road might have been seen to steal quietly through the gateway leading up to the half ruined mansion once the home of old Jeremiah Mansfield, known as the Three Oaks.
The night was cold and cheerless—the wind sighed mournfully among the trees of the park-like inclosure—not a star was to be seen in the clouded sky.
Pursuing their way up the avenue, the boys came suddenly upon the house itself, standing half ruined and deserted among the overshadowing trees.
It was not without feelings of emotion that Frank Mansfield gazed upon it.
Many and many were the pleasant hours spent within the old mansion during the more prosperous days of his boyhood—days not to be forgotten so long as he lived.
And if that prosperity could be but in a measure restored? If the name of his dead father, to say nothing of his own, could but be cleared before the world?