"Hullo!" said Arthur, peering over, "they're going. Look sharp down, Dig, or we'll be left." Dig obeyed. It was much more difficult getting down than getting up. Still, by dint of clinging tight hold of the ivy and feeling every step, he managed to descend the perilous arch and get on to the comparatively safe footing of the buttress. "You cut on," shouted Arthur from above, "I'll be down in a second. Don't wait--I have found an owl's nest up here; and I'm going to collar a young 'un for each of us. Don't tell them. If Railsford asks where I am, tell him I'm walking home. You can go with him on the tandem. I'll be home as soon as you." At the same moment a shout from below of "Herapath!" "Oakshott!" still further hastened Dig's descent to _terra firma_. "Come on," said Railsford, who was already seated on the tricycle, "it's coming on to rain. Where's Herapath?" "Oh, he's walking home. He told me to tell you so. We've been scrambling about. Can I come in the tandem?" "If he's not coming you can. Has he gone on, then?" "No--he was just getting a--a specimen," said Dig, hopping up on the saddle, and resolving that Marky should do all the work. "He says he'd sooner walk." "Dear me! here comes the rain," said Railsford, turning up his collar, "we'd better go on. He'll get wet, whichever way he comes home." So they departed--as also did Mr Roe and the doctor and all the others. "There's an owl again," said Mr Roe, looking back at the big window. He was wrong. The shout he heard was from Arthur; not this time in sport, but in grim earnest. For, having abandoned the idea of capturing the owls, he had started to descend the arch. He had safely accomplished half the distance when a ledge of mortar gave way under him and left him hanging by his arms to the ivy. He felt in vain with his feet for some support, but could find none. Dig's previous descent had knocked away most of the little ledges by which they had come up. Finally, by a desperate effort, he pulled himself up a few inches by the ivy and managed to get a footing again. But there he stuck. He could not go down further; and to go up would bring him no nearer Grandcourt than he was at present. So it was Arthur shouted; and everyone thought him an owl, and left him there in the rain to spend a pleasant evening on the top of the great window of Wellham Abbey. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. THE HAUNTED WINDOW. "Let me see," said the doctor, as he and Railsford met once during the day, "I have two of your boys to see this evening. One, a prefect. Was it necessary to send him up?" "It was, sir. If I saw the slightest prospect of dealing properly with him myself I would have done so. He is an enemy to the order of our house, and, as you know, our house just now cannot afford to have more enemies than it has."