movement of a tired horse in the stable.

Our bivouac was a clump of trammon trees (elders) at the corner of the
orchard which adjoined the farm buildings. Between us and the dwelling
house there was a disused pigsty. At about a quarter to eleven o'clock a
man, with a red setter dog at his heels and a fowling piece on his arm,
came sneaking up, and crept into the sty.

Then there was another long spell of silence, not broken, but rather
intensified, by the words which I whispered to Fred Harcourt that the
fellow who crept into the sty was Kit Kermode, and that he could be
after no good.

At midnight a cock crew at the far end of the village, and a dog barked.
Then there was silence again, save that every now and again a sedge
warbler, far away by the stream near Shenvarla, sang a faintly audible
song. Our position on the slope of the foot-hill at Gordon House was
between the village and the hills which girt the sea coast. This made my
theory of the sleep-walking to the cliffs more plausible. But while we
lay low in the clump of trammon trees the appearance of Kit Kermode,
with his cat-like walk and his eyes that could wink slander faster than
any old woman's tongue could wag it, gave me a theory, or at least a
speculation, in another direction.

In soft whispers to Fred Harcourt, who was new to the village, I told
him how the rascal Kermode hated Andrew the blacksmith. "He hates him,"
I said, "I do verily believe, for his good honest face, his manly
outspoken tongue, his courage, and his power of arm, but most of all he
hates him since Andrew, years ago as an innocent and unthinking lad, ran
after him in the village street and handed him a reminder of some money
which he owed his master."

"But what can that have to do with Deborah Shimmin's gulls' eggs?" asked
Fred, whose mind never seemed to see anything but pictures of divers
colours and inspiring outlines in the happy dreamland he lived in, all
unconscious of the world's cruelty, and hate, and love of evil.

I had just finished telling him that a man like Kermode might bribe a
boy to get him gulls' eggs, and sneak up to Deborah's window and quietly
reach in and place the eggs on her dressing-table, as a means of getting
Deborah and Andrew into trouble. I had just finished giving this outline
of the thought in my mind, I say, when the door of the farmhouse opened
and Deborah Shimmin, clad only in her nightdress, stepped lightly forth
and started up the hillsid