"It was bigger than a hen," exclaimed Judy inconsequently. "It couldn't have come through any keyhole." She stared with inquiring, startled eyes at her brother. The bird and the keyhole were somehow lumped together in her mind. "They've stopped," observed Maria, and sat down in the comfortable niche between the lopped branch and the trunk. It was true. The wallflowers were as motionless now as painted outlines on a nursery saucer. "Because we're safe," said Uncle Felix. "It was a warning." And then all turned their attention to Tim's discovery of the keyhole. For the stuffing had been removed. The white, dusty road gleamed through the hole in a spot of shining white. "Hush!" whispered their guide. "There's something moving." "Perhaps it's Jinks in his cemetery," thought Judy after a pause to listen. "No," said Uncle Felix with decision. "It's outside. It's on the--road!" His earnestness on these occasions always thrilled them; his gravity and the calm way he kept his head invariably won their confidence. "The London Road!" they repeated. That meant the world. "Something going past," he added, listening intently. They listened intently with him. All four were still holding hands. "The great High Road outside," he repeated softly, while they moved instinctively to the highest part of the tree whence they could see over the fence. They craned their necks. The dusty road was flowing very swiftly, and like a river it had risen. Never before had it been so easily visible. They saw the ruts the carts had made, the hedge upon the opposite bank, the grassy ditch where the hemlock grew in feathery quantities. They even saw loose flints upon the edge. But the actual road was higher than before. It certainly was rising. "Metropolis!" cried Tim. "I see an eye!" Some one was looking through the keyhole at them. "An eye!" exclaimed several voices in a hushed, expectant tone. There was a pause, during which every one looked at every one else. "It's probably a tramp," said Uncle Felix gravely. "We'll let him in." The proposal, however, alarmed them, for they had expected something very different. To stuff the keyhole, run away and hide, or at least to barricade the fence was what he ought to have advised. Instead of this they heard the very opposite. The excitement became intense. For them a tramp meant danger, robbery with violence, intoxication, awful dirt, and an under-the-bed-at-midnight kind of terror. It was so long since they had seen the tramp--their own tramp--that they had forgotten his existence. "They'll kill us at once," said Maria, using the plural with the comprehensive and anticipatory vision of the child. "They're harmless as white mice," said her Uncle quickly, "once you know how to treat them, and full of adventures too. I do," he added with decision, referring to the treatment. And he stepped down to unbar the gate.