But before we came to the Bridge End, where we had found the marks of the struggle that first morning, Elsie had an idea that if we struck across the road and kept round the edge of the Brom Water, we would escape the bailiff's cottage and stand a good chance of seeing Deep Moat Grange without being discovered by anybody. When we got there it was only about six in the morning, and eerie enough in the gloomy bits, where you could not see a handsbreadth of sky, and nasty things, which you told yourself were only rabbits, would keep moving and rustling in the undergrowth. I would have been glad to go back even then, because after all, it was silly. Just imagine--mad folks, and murderers, maybe, skulking in coverts! I am as brave as anybody when all is open and I have a chance to run. I am too old to believe in ghosts, of course; but for all that there are queer things to be seen in old green droopy woods like that of Deep Moat Hollow. The trees whisper and seem to know such a lot. After about an hour I get shivers down my back. But it was no use arguing with Elsie. She went on first, and I guarded the rear--that being the most dangerous position. And I did it well, for I declare I got crick in the neck just with looking over my shoulder. So we crept and crept, foot by foot, looking and testing everything. And it was as well. Because, quite without warning, the thick bushes ceased, and there we were on the edge of a deep trench with very black water at the bottom. The sides were steep and green with grass. But on the other bank all was green and yellow, with spreading lawns and Lent lilies growing, and a woman in a short skirt, coming and going among them, with a gardening spade in her hand. Somehow I knew at once that that was Daft Jeremy's elder sister, Aphra Orrin, the one who was not so mad as the others, and kept house for Elsie's grandfather. She came quite near. We could have tossed a dog biscuit to her feet--could, that is--somehow, I didn't want to. It might have startled the poor lady, and besides I hate making oneself conspicuous. Over the lily patches and the flower beds we got glimpses of a red-tiled house, low and old, all overgrown with ivy about the gables and porches. It had small windows with criss-cross panes, and smoke was coming out of one of the chimneys, though it was yet so early. That I took to be the kitchen of Deep Moat Grange. The canal seemed to go all the way round, and to join on to the pond which we could see glimmering beyond the house, looking gray through a fringe of willows.