elve feet
into the playground, or of walking on the top of the wall until the
walnut tree was reached.

Tulloch's stood some little distance along the Lower Richmond Road.
There were but one or two houses, standing back from the road
between it and the main road up the hill, and there was little fear
of anyone being abroad at that time in the morning. There was, as
yet, but a faint gleam of daylight in the sky; and it was dark in
the road up the hill, as the trees growing in the grounds of the
houses, on either side, stretched far over it.

"I say," Jim Sankey said, "won't it be a go, if Johnny Gibson isn't
there, after all?"

"He will be up there by four," Bob said, confidently. "He said his
father would be going out in his boat to fish, as soon as it began
to be daylight--because the tide served at that hour--and that he
would start, as soon as his father shoved off the boat.

"My eye, Jim, what is that ahead of us? It looks to me like a
coach."

"It is a coach, or a carriage, or something of that sort."

"No, it isn't, it is a light cart. What can it be doing here, at
this hour? Let us walk the other side of the road."

They crossed to the left, as they got abreast of the cart. A man,
whom they had not noticed before, said sharply:

"You are about early."

"Yes, we are off to work," Bob replied, and they walked steadily
on.

"He couldn't see what we were like," Jim Sankey said, when they had
got a hundred yards further.

"Not he," Bob said. "I could not make out his figure at all, and it
is darker on this side of the road than it is on the other.

"I say, you fellows, I think he is up to no good."

"What do you mean, Bob?"

"Well, what should a cart be standing on the hill for, at this time
in the morning? That's Admiral Langton's, I know; the door is just
where the cart was stopping."

"Well, what has that got to do with it, Bob? The cart won't do him
any harm."

"No, but there may be some fellows with it, who may be breaking
into his house."

"Do you think so, Bob?"

"Well, it seems likely to me it may be his house, or one of the
others."

"Well, what are we to do, Bob?"

"I vote we see about it, Jim. We have pretty nearly half an hour to
spare, now, before Johnny Gibson will come along. We have got our
hockey sticks, you know."

"But suppose there shouldn't be any men there, Bob, and we should
be caught in the grounds; They would think we were going to steal
something."

"That wou