the summer.

We were to lurk in ambush there, and waylay an unwary traveller. We were
to call upon him to surrender his arms, and then bring him home and put
him in the deepest dungeon below the castle moat; then we were to load
him with chains and send to his friends for ransom.

You may think we had no chains, but you are wrong, because we used
to keep two other dogs once, besides Pincher, before the fall of the
fortunes of the ancient House of Bastable. And they were quite big dogs.

It was latish in the afternoon before we started. We thought we could
lurk better if it was nearly dark. It was rather foggy, and we waited
a good while beside the railings, but all the belated travellers were
either grown up or else they were Board School children. We weren't
going to get into a row with grown-up people--especially strangers--and
no true bandit would ever stoop to ask a ransom from the relations of
the poor and needy. So we thought it better to wait.

As I said, it was Guy Fawkes Day, and if it had not been we should never
have been able to be bandits at all, for the unwary traveller we did
catch had been forbidden to go out because he had a cold in his head.
But he would run out to follow a guy, without even putting on a coat or
a comforter, and it was a very damp, foggy afternoon and nearly dark, so
you see it was his own fault entirely, and served him jolly well right.

We saw him coming over the Heath just as we were deciding to go home
to tea. He had followed that guy right across to the village (we call
Blackheath the village; I don't know why), and he was coming back
dragging his feet and sniffing.

'Hist, an unwary traveller approaches!' whispered Oswald.

'Muffle your horses' heads and see to the priming of your pistols,'
muttered Alice. She always will play boys' parts, and she makes Ellis
cut her hair short on purpose. Ellis is a very obliging hairdresser.

'Steal softly upon him,' said Noel; 'for lo! 'tis dusk, and no human
eyes can mark our deeds.'

So we ran out and surrounded the unwary traveller. It turned out to be
Albert-next-door, and he was very frightened indeed until he saw who we
were.

'Surrender!' hissed Oswald, in a desperate-sounding voice, as he caught
the arm of the Unwary. And Albert-next-door said, 'All right! I'm
surrendering as hard as I can. You needn't pull my arm off.'

We explained to him that resistance was useless, and I think he saw that
from the first. We held him tig