CHAPTER III
THE FIRST STEP UP
DURING 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 beloved 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
