The night was still and close, and the moon was at the full in the
heavens. It was so silent out of doors, that I heard from time to time,
very faint and low, the fall of the sea, as the ground-swell heaved
it in on the sand-bank near the mouth of our little bay. As the house
stood, the terrace side was the dark side; but the broad moonlight
showed fair on the gravel walk that ran along the next side to the
terrace. Looking this way, after looking up at the sky, I saw the shadow
of a person in the moonlight thrown forward from behind the corner of
the house.
Being old and sly, I forbore to call out; but being also, unfortunately,
old and heavy, my feet betrayed me on the gravel. Before I could steal
suddenly round the corner, as I had proposed, I heard lighter feet
than mine--and more than one pair of them as I thought--retreating in
a hurry. By the time I had got to the corner, the trespassers, whoever
they were, had run into the shrubbery at the off side of the walk, and
were hidden from sight among the thick trees and bushes in that part of
the grounds. From the shrubbery, they could easily make their way, over
our fence into the road.
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