By good luck, we did not need it; for as he passed it to me, the louver at which I was tugging broke and came away in my hand.

We easily loosened another and, squeezing through, dropped into the loft upon a sliding pile of grain.
The loft was dark enough; but a glimmer of light shone through the chinks of a door at the far end.

Unbolting it, we looked down, from the height of thirty feet or so, into a deserted lane.

Or rather _I_ looked down: for while I fumbled with the bolts Master Archie had banged his head into something hard, and dropped, rubbing the hurt and cursing.
It proved to be the timber cross-piece of a derrick used for hoisting sacks of grain into the loft, working on an axle, and now swung inboard for the night.

A double rope ran through the pulley at its end and had been hitched back over the iron winch which worked it.
We pushed the derrick out over the lane and I manned the winch handle, while Master Archie caught hold of the hook and pulley at the end of the double line.