ye, and wedged from the inside."

Dickson brightened. Was the insane venture off?

"For a wee bit I was fair beat. But I mindit that the lassie was
allowed to walk in a kind o' a glass hoose on the side farthest away
from the Garple. That was where she was singin' yest'reen. So I
reckonissinced in that direction, and I fund a queer place." Sacred
Songs and Solos was requisitioned, and on a page of it Dougal proceeded
to make marks with the stump of a carpenter's pencil. "See here," he
commanded. "There's the glass place wi' a door into the Hoose. That
door maun be open or the lassie maun hae the key, for she comes there
whenever she likes. Now' at each end o' the place the doors are
lockit, but the front that looks on the garden is open, wi' muckle
posts and flower-pots. The trouble is that that side there' maybe
twenty feet o' a wall between the pawrapet and the ground. It's an
auld wall wi' cracks and holes in it, and it wouldn't be ill to sklim.
That's why they let her gang there when she wants, for a lassie
couldn't get away without breakin' her neck."

"Could we climb it?" Heritage asked.

The boy wrinkled his brows. "I could manage it mysel'--I think--and
maybe you. I doubt if auld McCunn could get up. Ye'd have to be
mighty carefu' that nobody saw ye, for your hinder end, as ye were
sklimmin', wad be a grand mark for a gun."

"Lead on," said Heritage. "We'll try the verandah."

They both looked at Dickson, and Dickson, scarlet in the face, looked
back at them. He had suddenly found the thought of a solitary march to
Auchenlochan intolerable. Once again he was at the parting of the
ways, and once more caprice determined his decision. That the
coal-hole was out of the question had worked a change in his views,
Somehow it seemed to him less burglarious to enter by a verandah. He
felt very frightened but--for the moment--quite resolute.

"I'm coming with you," he said.

"Sportsman," said Heritage, and held out his hand. "Well done, the
auld yin," said the Chieftain of the Gorbals Die-Hards. Dickson's
quaking heart experienced a momentary bound as he followed Heritage
down the track into the Garple Dean.

The track wound through a thick covert of hazels, now close to the
rushing water, now high upon the bank so that clear sky showed through
the fringes of the wood. When they had gone a little way Dougal halted
them.

"It's a ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the tinklers, mind,
th