There was a silence, during which the three Wests heartily repented their naughty folly in having secretly made such an undesirable acquaintance.
Presently there was a heavy footstep in the yard below.
"What's that?" whispered Lewis, in a very different voice to the bullying accents in which he had just been speaking.
"It is Barton driving the cows into the yard to be milked," replied Madge softly. "He always does it about this time."
"But how am I to get down the ladder to go home if he is standing at the bottom?" inquired Lewis nervously.
"I never thought of that! He will be in the yard for the next hour," answered Madge. "Of course we don't mind passing him, because we are allowed to play up here; only he doesn't like us making the hay as untidy as it is now. But I'm sure you can't get down without being seen."
"You won't all run away and leave me caught like a rat in a trap, will you?" begged Lewis, almost whimpering with fright.
"Is it likely?" replied Madge in her finest tone of scorn. "Stay quiet," she added with contemptuous kindness, "and we will get you out of it somehow."
It is in moments of peril that a true leader shines most. While Lewis lay cowering behind the straw, and the twins waited expectantly for some suggestion, Madge calmly looked round the loft and originated a plan. "I know how you can get away," she said, after some moments of earnest thought. "There is that little door at the back of the loft, it does not look out into the yard but out upon the hay-ricks, in fact that is where they put the hay up into the loft. If you get down that side Barton can't possibly see you while he is milking the cows in the yard."
"Oh, that's a capital idea! I'll go at once!" cried Lewis. "Not that I am really afraid of your old man or anybody," he added, with a return of his customary boastful manner. "Only I don't want to get you all into trouble."