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You’ve got to do exactly what I tell you. You’ve got to get into the playground as soon as it’s dark, and come down to this corner. I’ll do the rest.”
    Peter’s words were large, and his tone assured. He had, as a matter of fact, not the slightest idea of how he was going to get Rose Ellen over the wall. He only knew that he was going to get her over it. Rose Ellen shook her head once more.
    â€œI can’t,” she said.
    â€œIf Peter had been upon solid earth he would have stamped his foot. As it was, he could only produce a murkier frown and a more aggressive whisper:
    â€œYou’ve got to! I shall be here. I shall be here all night until you come. You’ve got to come! Then I shall take you away, and you’ll be ever so jolly.”
    He had time and only just time, to finish what he had to say. A bell began to ring with loud, clanging strokes.
    Rose Ellen turned and ran back along the way by which she had come. The playground emptied. The bell stopped ringing.

CHAPTER V
    Peter climbed down into the field behind the hedgerow. He had no watch, but he guessed that it must be getting on for three o’clock. The sun would set at about half past six. It would be at least twenty minutes later before it would be safe for him to get Rose Ellen over the wall—no, twenty minutes wasn’t enough. He looked at the sky. The day had been grey, and here on the upland the clouds hung low. There were more clouds, blacker ones, away on the horizon; that would help. It might be dark enough at seven. He would just have to wait and see.
    He hoped Rose Ellen would not do anything stupid. That was the worst of girls, you never knew where you were with themdreadfully clever one minute, and simply too stupid for words the next.
    He had four hours. He began to tick off on his fingers what he had to do. First—plans:
    1. A plan to get over the wall himself.
    2. A plan to get Rose Ellen over the wall.
    3. A plan to get them both away from Parberry.
    4. A plan of what to do with Rose Ellen when they had both got away.
    Peter concentrated on the first plan. He climbed the hedgerow, and went and measured himself against the wall. He was five foot three and three-quarters, and the wall appeared to be eight feet high, leaving a balance of two feet eight and a quarter inches in favour of the wall. This required thought.
    Peter backed away from the wall, frowned at it ferociously, and thought. Then he descended into the ditch at the foot of the hedgerow, and began to tug at the lopped boughs which lay half in, half out of it. Some were too heavy for him to move, others rotten and slimy; but after a while he pulled one or two quite useful ones clear of the rest. They were good, stout limbs with some side branches and knobby excrescences. Peter laid them handy, and considered that plans one and two were in good train. There was nothing more for him to do here until it began to get dusk. He therefore cut back across the fields, reached the high road, and walked down the hill into Parberry.
    Rose Ellen sat on a hard wooden form, and sewed on a long, hard seam. The large classroom with its bare windows and stone floor was cold. Rose Ellen’s hands were cold. If she lifted her head from her work she could see more forms and desks, rows and rows of them, stretching away in front of her, with a teacher’s desk like a sort of watch-tower at the far end.
    Miss Jones was the teacher. She was the sort of person who sees everything. She could see in an instant if you stopped sewing, or dropped you thimble, or knotted your thread. Then she would rap on the desk with a ruler and say, very loud and high, “Ellen Smith, attention!” Or it might be, “Gladys Clark!” or “Violet Brown!” But it was very often “Ellen Smith!”
    Ellen Smith was Rose Ellen. She didn’t know why she was Ellen Smith, and she hated being Ellen Smith; but that was the way it was. She went on