“Catch him doing that! Besides, the trick is sure to get wind in the town; he might be capable of coming forward and declaring that we bought the keys at his shop.” “Let’s throw ‘em down old Pye’s well!” “They’d come up again in the bucket, as ghosts do!” “Couldn’t we make a railway parcel of them, and direct it to ‘Mr. Smith, London?’” “‘Two pounds to pay; to be kept till called for,’” added Mark Galloway, improving upon the suggestion. “They’d put it in their fire-proof safe, and it would never come out again.” “Throw them into the river,” said Stephen Bywater. “That’s the only safe place for them: they’d lie at the bottom for ever. We have time to do it now. Come along.” Acting upon the impulse, as schoolboys usually do, they went galloping out of the cloisters, running against the head-master, who was entering, and nearly overturning his equilibrium. He gave them an angry word of caution; they touched their caps in reply, and somewhat slackened their speed, resuming the gallop when he was out of hearing. Inclosing the cathedral and its precincts on the western side, was a wall, built of red stone. It was only breast high, standing on the cathedral side; but on the other side it descended several feet, to the broad path which ran along the banks of the river. The boys made for this wall and gained it, their faces hot, and their breath gone. “Who’ll pitch ‘em in?” cried Hurst, who did not altogether relish being chief actor himself, for windows looked on to that particular spot from various angles and corners of the Boundaries. “You shall do it, Galloway!” “Oh shall I, though!” returned young Galloway, not relishing it either. “You precious rebel! Take the keys, and do as I order you!” Young Galloway was under Hurst. He no more dared to disobey him than he could have disobeyed the head-master. Had Hurst ordered him to jump into the river he must have done it. He took the keys tendered him by Hurst, and was raising them for the pitch, when Bywater laid his hand upon them and struck them down with a sudden movement, clutching them to him. “You little wretch, you are as deaf as a donkey!” he uttered. “There’s somebody coming up. Turn your head, and look who it is.”