"Perhaps you hit it rightly, Michael--and yet----"
"Well, sir, at any rate I fear it is impossible for us to prove it; for no doubt the rascal is far enough away by now."
Barely had I said those words when from without there came the loud snapping of a tree branch, followed by a heavy thud, and this again by the sound of swiftly-running feet.
Springing to the window, I looked out. As I have said, a lusty chestnut tree grew close above a neighbouring wall. This time its leaves were shaking violently, while a broken branch lay lodged upon the wall top; but there was no one to be seen, and so it was clear that whoever had fallen must have gone down on the far side of the wall, that is, the one on which the tree was rooted.
"What is it?" asked my father in an anxious whisper, leaning over me.
"A broken branch," I answered. "Someone was certainly in yonder tree."
The hand upon my shoulder trembled.
"Ah! say you so? Who could it have been?"
"That I will try to find out."
Climbing through the casement, which was but some ten feet above the ground, I dropped lightly to the lawn. Midway in the garden wall a little door led to a small demesne, of shrubbery and orchard. Full carefully I opened this, and, passing through, stood listening. Not a sound was to be heard, and as the grass had been mown but a day or two before, and still lay in a thick swath, there was little chance of finding tracks.