Within an hour after midnight I heard the hooting of an owl.  The doleful sound came up to me from the direction of the stone footbridge at the southwest corner of the Hall below the chapel.  I went to my window and looked out over the courts and terrace.  Haddon Hall and all things in and about it were wrapped in slumbrous silence.  I waited, and again I heard the hooting of the owl.  Noiselessly leaving my room I descended the stone steps to an unused apartment in the tower from which a window opened upon the roof of the north wing of the Hall.  Along that roof I crept with bared feet, till I reached another roof, the battlements of which at the lowest point were not more than twenty feet from the ground.  Thence I clambered down to a window cornice five or six feet lower, and jumped, at the risk of my limbs, the remaining distance of fifteen or sixteen feet to the soft sod beneath.  I ran with all haste, took my stand under Aunt Dorothy’s window, and whistled softly.  The window casing opened and I heard the great bunch of keys jingling and clinking against the stone wall as Aunt Dorothy paid them out to me by means of a cord.  After I had secured the keys I called in a whisper to Lady Crawford and directed her to leave the cord hanging from the window.  I also told her to remain in readiness to draw up the keys when they should have served their purpose.  Then I took them and ran to the stone footbridge where I found four Rutland men who had come in response to the message Dawson had sent by Jennie Faxton.  Two of the men went with me, and we entered the lower garden by the southwest postern.  Thence we crept noiselessly to the terrace and made our entrance into the Hall by “Dorothy’s Postern.”  I had in my life engaged in many questionable and dangerous enterprises, but this was my first attempt at house-breaking.  To say that I was nervous would but poorly define the state of my feelings.  Since that day I have respected the high calling of burglary and regard with favor the daring knights of the skeleton key.  I was frightened.  I, who would feel no fear had I to fight a dozen men, trembled with fright during this adventure.  The deathlike silence and the darkness in familiar places seemed uncanny to me.  The very chairs and tables appeared to be sleeping, and I was fearful lest they should awaken.  I cannot describe to you how I was affected.  Whether it was fear or awe or a smiting conscience I cannot say, but my teeth chattered as if they were in the mouth of a fool, and my knees quaked as if they supported a coward.  Still I knew I was doing my duty, though one’s conscience sometimes smites him when his reason tells him he is acting righteously.  It is more dangerous to possess a sensitive conscience which cannot be made to hear reason than to have none at all.  But I will make short my account of that night’s doings.  The two Rutland men and I groped our way to the dungeon and carried forth John, who was weak from loss of blood.  I told them to lock the door of the Hall as they passed out and to attach the keys to the cord hanging from Lady Crawford’s window.  Then I climbed to my room again, feeling in conscience like a criminal because I had done the best act of my life.