Wednesday 30th April 1808

Dear Diary,
I have been skulking and deceiving but all for the good of others. Yesterday I went about the business of the day as normal but after dinner in the evening, I slipped out into the dusk and retrieved the bag of Chapel silver from the bushes where Woody presented it to me. I was creeping around the back of the Grange when I bumped into Fanny.
"What is afoot?" She demanded.
"Don't ask," I replied, "for I cannot tell. Just know that all I do is for good."
"Be careful," she whispered after me as I set off down the lane. As I approached the Chapel I noticed a glow from within. I slipped in and noticed the candles upon the altar aflame. I ducked behind a pew as the Parson emerged from the vestry and busied himself behind his pulpit. After a few moments he returned to the vestry and I crept from hiding and moved towards the front of the Chapel. However the Parson rememerged and I had to crouch behind a pillar. The Parson extinguished the candles and moved down the aisle and went out into the night, closing the door behind him.
I was alone in the dark and the silence. If there had been no moon I would have bruised my legs more than I did as made my way to the altar. I replaced the silver in it's rightful places and, feeling pleased with the relative ease of my clandestine actions, returned to door. I have no doubt that any other person would have skipped off home happily full of delight at the righting of a wrong, but I am Wayne Austen and the magpies despise me and nought in my life is so simple.
I grasped the knob, turned it and pulled, but nothing happened. I repeated my actions far too many times for a normally sane person before I accepted that it was indeed locked and that I was entombed in that Holy place for the night. It is never locked but then it had never been robbed afore. I searched for other exits but finding none sank onto a pew. For all the dark and the silence, I felt strangely at ease and resigned myself to my fate.
I did not sleep well but must have for some little time as I was awakened this morn by the door swinging open and the sound of purposeful footsteps upon the stone floor. Mrs Bunder swept past carrying a bundle of greenery and flowers for decoration. She did not see me and I was able to slip out unnoticed and return to the Grange. I decided upon a plausible story to explain my absence but unfortunately found it had been explained by another. It seems Fanny took it upon herself to invent a secret rendezvous with Miss Quirrel, the school teacher in Cobbler's Bottom.
If Ned winks at me one more time I fear I may have need of his chopper!