Speid and Jimmy slid through the bars of the gate; they dared not open it nor get over it for fear it should rattle on its hinges. They kept a little way apart until they had reached the belt of thorn-trees, and, under cover of these, they drew together again and listened. Once they heard a boot knock against a stone; they crept on to the very edge of their shelter, until they were not thirty yards from the dovecot. The door by which it was entered was on the farther side from the road, and the pigeon-holes ran along the opposite wall a few feet below the roof. Three men were standing by the door, their outlines just distinguishable. Jimmy went down on his hands and knees, and began to crawl, with that motion to which the serpent was condemned in Eden, towards a patch of broom that made a spot like an island in the short stretch of open ground between the thorns and the building, Gilbert following.
Now and then they paused to listen, but the voices which they could now hear ran on undisturbed, and, when they had reached their goal, they were close enough to the dovecot to see a heap lying at its foot which they took to be a pile of netting. Evidently the thieves had not begun their night’s work.
The nearest man approached the heap and began to shake it out.
‘I’ll gi’e ye a lift up, Robbie,’ said one of the voices; ‘there’s stanes stickin’ out o’ the wa’ at the west side. I had a richt look at it Sabbath last when the kirk was in.’
‘My! but you’re a sinfu’ man!’ exclaimed Robbie.
‘We’re a’ that,’ observed a third speaker piously.
Two of the men took the net, and went round the dovecot wall till they found the stones of which their companion had spoken; these rough steps had been placed there for the convenience of anyone who might go up to mend the tiling.
‘Lie still till they are both up,’ whispered Gilbert. ‘There are two to hold the net, and one to go in and beat out the birds.’
They crouched breathless in the broom till they saw two figures rise above the slanting roof between them and the sky. Each had a length of rope which he secured round one of the stone balls standing at either end above the crowsteps; it was easy to see that the business had been carefully planned. Inside the dovecot, a cooing and gurgling showed that the birds were awakened.