The contrivance was finished after a week’s hard work.  Tested in the farmyard, the lengthening apparatus worked smoothly; it only remained to try it in the air.  Templeton had already marked a suitable spot for the trial—a sloping field some little distance from the farm, too steep for cultivation, and occupied usually by cattle fattening for Coggins, the butcher.  It was enclosed by a thick hedge except at the gate, and that was kept locked, and blocked with brushwood.