To pass from the eaves to the shed and thence to the ground was the work of a moment. The crooked branch of an old apple-tree which grew near the house, was of decided use to him and enabled him to make his risky descent with comparatively no noise. When he was on the ground, he stopped and listened, then wheeling rapidly about, proceeded to walk up the street. The night was dark and threatened storm. Everywhere there was a sound of swishing boughs and rattling panes which served to deaden the noise of his tread on the pavement, but he seemed so anxious not to attract attention even in the darkness and solitude of this midnight hour that he stepped into the grass that bordered the road, and even took off his shoes that no echo might follow his movements. The course he took led him in an entirely different direction from any he had traversed during the day. As soon as he reached the point where the court house stands, he turned east and went up Carberry hill. As there are but two or three houses on this slope, his destination became speedily apparent. On the brow of the hill where the wind blows strongest, stands the old Earle cottage, with its windows closed to every eye and its untrod doorstep hidden amid weeds that had choked up the entrance for many a year. In the daylight it had an utterly lonesome and deserted look, but at night, especially when the moon was hidden and the winds blew, it possessed a forbidding, almost an ominous look, which would have deterred anyone whose errand was less pressing than that of our midnight wanderer, from approaching, much less examining a spot so given over to solitude. A row of stunted oak trees shielded the house on one side, and marked off the limits of the deserted garden, where burdock and thistles grew instead of the homely vegetables and old-fashioned flowers of years ago. To-night all these trees were bending one way in the sharp gale, their whistling leaves and the _pat, pat_ of the long limbs against the clap-boards of the house adding to the lugubriousness of the scene. But to the man who stood in the long grass at the rear of this disused dwelling there was nothing in the hour or place to arouse dread or awaken apprehension. He studied the house, but not with the eyes of a dreamer, and when he finally made up his mind to approach the rear door it was with determination in his face and a certain calculation in his movement which proved that he was there with a definite purpose.