He scudded along the wall, glad to have Clare between him and the butt. Clare followed swiftly. He was not so quick on the cat-promenade as Tommy, but he had a good head, and was spurred by the apprehension of being seen up there in the moonlight. Chapter XXIII. TREASURE TROVE. In a few moments they were safe in the thicket at the foot of what had been their enemy and was now their friend--the garden-wall. How many things and persons there are whose other sides are altogether friendly! These are their true selves, and we must be true to get at them. Tommy again took the lead, though with a fresh sinking of the heart because of that other place with the moon in it. Through the tangled thicket they made or found their way--and there stood the house, with the moon looking down on its roof, and the drunkard’s thunder troubling her still pale light--her _moon-thinking_. But for the noise and the haste, Clare would have been frightened at them. There seemed some secret between the house and the moon which they were determined no one else should share. They were of one mind to terrify man or boy who should attempt to cross the threshold! There was no time, however, to heed such fancies. “If we could only get in without spoiling anything!” thought Clare. Once in, they would hurt nothing, take but the shelter and rest lying there of no good to anybody, and leave them there all the same when they had done with them! While they stood looking at the house, the thundering at the door of the smithy ceased. Presently they heard voices in altercation. One voice was that of the smith, quieter than when last they heard it, but ill-tempered and growling as at first. The other seemed that of a woman. She had been able so far to quiet him, probably, that he remembered he had the key in his pocket; for they thought they heard the door of the smithy open. Then all was silent, and the outcasts pursued their quest of an entrance to the house. Clare went ferreting as Tommy had done. He also tried to get a peep through the window with the swinging shutter, but had no better success than Tommy. Then he started to go round the corner next the blacksmith’s yard. “Look out!” cried Tommy in a loud whisper, when he saw where he was going. “Why?” asked Clare. “Because there’s a horrible hole there, full of water,” answered Tommy. “I’ll keep a look out,” returned Clare, and went. When he was about half-way along the end of the house, he heard a noise he did not understand, and stopped to listen. Some one seemed moving somewhere. Then came a kind of scrambling sound, and presently the noise of a great watery splash. Clare shivered from head to foot. “Something has fallen into the hole Tommy mentioned!” he said to himself, and ran on to see. A few steps brought him to what Tommy had taken for a great hole. It was nothing but a pool of rain-water: the splash could not have come from that!