CHAPTER III

THE FIRST STEP UP

  

ZURING the weeks that followed they
spent more time than ever in their
hiding-place. They had always been
in the habit of scrambling up to their
paloved refuge, when they could slip away there and
adjust their ladder, and have time to climb up when
there was no one about to see them. This was not
an easy thing when the kind of work was being done
which obliged the farm hands to pass in and out
of the barn or anywhere near it. They had realised
that it would not do for people to see the ladder too
often in one place and position, or to find it moving
itself from one point to another in a way not to be
at all explained by ordinary practical farm reasons.
Together they had discussed the matter with a great
deal of seriousness. It was indeed a serious affair.
Without the aid of the ladder their Straw Parlour
was an unattainable paradise, but to use it without

the exercise of proper precaution would betray them
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