Chapter Twenty Five.

Chapter Twenty Five.The church clock was striking six when Tom awoke, sprang out of bed, and looked out of the window, to find a glorious morning, with everything drenched in dew.Hastily dressing and hurrying down, he felt full of reproach for having overslept himself, his last thought having been of getting up at daybreak to continue the watch with David.There were the pears hanging in their places, and not a footprint visible upon the beds; and there too were the indentations made by two pairs of knees in the black-currant rows, while the earth was marked by the coarse fibre of the sacks.But the dew lay thickly, and had not been brushed off anywhere, and it suddenly struck Tom that the black-currant bushes would not be a favourable hiding-place when the light was coming, and that David must have selected some other.“Of course: in those laurels,” thought Tom, and he went along the path; but the piece of lawn between him and the shrubs had not been crossed, and after looking about in different directions, Tom began to grin and feel triumphant, for he was, after all, the first to wake.In fact it was not till half-past seven that the gardener arrived, walking very fast till he caught sight of Tom, when he checked his speed, and came down the garden bent of back and groaning.“Morning, Master Tom, sir. Oh, my back! Tried so hard to drag myself here just afore daylight.”“Only you didn’t wake, David,” cried Tom, interrupting him. “Why, you ought to have been up after having such a snooze last night in the garden.”“I won’t have you say such a word, sir,” cried David angrily. “Snooze! Me snooze! Why, it was you, sir, and you’re a-shoving it on to me, and—”David stopped short, for he could not stand the clear gaze of Tom’s laughing eyes. His face relaxed a little, and a few puckers began to appear, commencing a smile.“Well, it warn’t for many minutes, Master Tom.”“An hour.”“Nay, sir, nay; not a ’our.”“Quite, David; and I wouldn’t wake you. I say, don’t be a sham. You did oversleep yourself.”“Well, I s’pose I did, sir, just a little.”“And now what would you say if I told you that Pete has been and carried off all the pears?”“What!” yelled David; and straightening himself he ran off as hard as he could to the Marie Louise pear-tree, but only to come back grinning.“Nay, they’re all right,” he said. “But you’ll come and have another try to-night?”“Of course I will,” said Tom; and soon after he hurried in to breakfast.That morning Tom was in the workshop, where for nearly two hours, with rests between, he had been helping the speculum grinding. Uncle Richard had been summoned into the cottage, to see one of the tradesmen about some little matter of business, and finding that the bench did not stand quite so steady as it should, the boy fetched a piece of wood from the corner, and felt in his pocket for his knife, so as to cut a wedge, but the knife was not there, and he looked about him, feeling puzzled.“When did I have it last?” he thought. “I remember: here, the day before the speculum was broken. I had it to cut a wedge to put under that stool, and left it on the bench.”But there was no knife visible, and he was concluding that he must have had it since, and left it in his other trousers’ pocket, when he heard steps, and looking out through the open door, he saw the Vicar coming up the slope from the gate.“Good-morning, sir,” said Tom cheerily.“Good-morning, Thomas Blount,” was the reply, in very grave tones, accompanied by a searching look. “Is your uncle here?”“No, sir,” said Tom wonderingly; “he has just gone indoors. Shall I call him?”“Yes—no—not yet.”The Vicar coughed to clear his throat, and looked curiously at Tom again, with the result that the lad felt uncomfortable, and flushed a little.“Will you sit down, sir?” said Tom, taking a pot of rough emery off a stool, and giving the top a rub.“Thank you, no.”The Vicar coughed again to get rid of an unpleasant huskiness, and then, as if with an effort—“The fact is, Thomas Blount, I am glad he is not here, for I wish to say a few words to you seriously. I did mean to speak to him, but this is better. It shall be a matter of privacy between us, and I ask you, my boy, to treat me not as your censor but as your friend—one who wishes you well.”“Yes, sir, of course. Thank you, sir, I will,” said Tom, who felt puzzled, and grew more and more uncomfortable as he wondered what it could all mean, and finally, as the Vicar remained silent, concluded that it must be something to do with his behaviour in church. Then no, it could not be that, for he could find no cause of offence.“I know,” thought Tom suddenly. “He wants me to go and read with him, Latin and Greek, I suppose, or mathematics.”The Vicar coughed again, and looked so hard at Tom that the boy felt still more uncomfortable, and hurriedly began to pull down his rolled-up shirt-sleeves and to button his cuffs.“Don’t do that, Thomas Blount,” said the Vicar, still more huskily; “there is nothing to be ashamed of in honest manual labour.”“No, sir, of course not,” said the lad, still more uncomfortable, for it was very unpleasant to be addressed as “Thomas Blount,” in that formal way.“I often regret,” said the Vicar, “that I have so few opportunities for genuine hard muscular work, and admire your uncle for the way in which he plunges into labour of different kinds. For such work is purifying, Thomas Blount, and ennobling.”This was all very strange, and seemed like the beginning of a lecture, but Tom felt better, and he liked the Vicar—at least at other times, but not now.“Will you be honest with me, my lad?” said the visitor at last.“Oh yes, sir,” was the reply, for “my lad” sounded so much better than formal Thomas Blount.“That’s right. Ahem!”Another cough. A pause, and Tom coloured a little more beneath the searching gaze that met his.“Were you out last night?” came at last, to break a most embarrassing silence.“Yes, sir.”“Out late?”“Yes, sir; quite late.”“Humph!” ejaculated the Vicar, who looked now very hard and stern. “One moment—would you mind lending me your knife?”“My knife!” faltered Tom, astounded at such a request; and then, in a quick, hurried way—“I’m so sorry, sir, I cannot. I was looking for it just now, but I’ve lost it.”“Lost it? Dear me! Was it a valuable knife?”“Oh no, sir, only an old one, with the small blade broken.”“Would you mind describing it to me?”“Describing it, sir? Of course not. It had a big pointed blade, and a black and white bone handle.”“And the small blade broken, you say?”“Yes, sir.”“Had it any other mark by which you would know it? Knives with small blades broken are very general.”“No, sir, no other mark. Oh yes, it had. I filed a T and a B in it one day, but it was very badly done.”“Very, Thomas Blount,” said the Vicar, taking something from his breast-pocket. “Is that your knife?”“Yes,” cried Tom eagerly, “that’s it! Where did you find it, sir? I know; you must have taken it off that bench by mistake when uncle showed you round.”“No, Thomas Blount,” said the Vicar, shaking his head, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the lad; “I found it this morning in my garden.”“You couldn’t, sir,” cried Tom bluntly. “How could it get there?”The Vicar gazed at him without replying, and Tom added hastily—“I beg your pardon, sir. I meant that it is impossible.”“The knife asserts that it is possible, sir. Take it. A few pence would have bought those plums.”The hand Tom had extended dropped to his side.“What plums, sir?” he said, feeling more and more puzzled.“Bah! I detest pitiful prevarication, sir,” cried the Vicar warmly. “The knife was dropped by whoever it was stripped the wall of my golden drops last night. There, take your knife, sir, I have altered my intentions. I did mean to speak to your uncle.”“What about?” said Uncle Richard, who had come up unheard in the excitement. “Good-morning, Maxted. Any one’s cow dead? Subscription wanted?”“Oh no,” said the Vicar. “It must out now. I suppose some one’s honour has gone a little astray.”“Then we must fetch it back. Whose? Not yours, Tom?”“I don’t know, uncle,” said the boy, with his forehead all wrinkled up. “Yes, I do. Mr Maxted thinks I went to his garden last night to steal plums. Tell him I didn’t, uncle, please.”“Tell him yourself, Tom.”“I can’t,” said Tom bluntly, and a curiously stubborn look came over his countenance. Then angrily—“Mr Maxted oughtn’t to think I’d do such a thing.”The Vicar compressed his lips and wrinkled up his forehead.“Well, I can,” said Uncle Richard. “No, Maxted, he couldn’t have stolen your plums, because he was out quite late stealing pears—the other way on.”“Uncle!” cried Tom, as the Vicar now looked puzzled.“We apprehended a visit from a fruit burglar, and Tom here and my gardener were watching, but he did not come. Then he visited you instead?”“Yes, and dropped this knife on the bed beneath the wall.”“Let me look,” said Uncle Richard. “Why, that’s your knife, Tom.”“Yes, uncle.”“How do you account for that? Policemen don’t turn burglars.”“It seems I lost it, uncle. I haven’t seen it, I think, since I had it to put a wedge under that leg of the stool.”“And when was that?”“As far as I can remember, uncle, it was the day or the day before the speculum was broken. I fancy I left it on the window-sill or bench.”“Plain as a pike-staff, my dear Maxted,” said Uncle Richard, clapping the Vicar on the shoulder. “You have had a visit from the gentleman who broke my new speculum.”“You suspected your nephew of breaking the speculum,” said the Vicar.“Oh!” cried Tom excitedly:“Yes, but I know better now. You’re wrong, my dear sir, quite wrong. We can prove such an alibi as would satisfy the most exacting jury. Tom was with me in my room until half-past eight, and from that hour to ten I can answer for his being in the garden with my man David.”“Then I humbly beg your nephew’s pardon for my unjust suspicions,” cried the Vicar warmly. “Will you forgive me—Tom?”“Of course, sir,” cried the boy, seizing the extended hand. “But you are convinced now, sir?”“Perfectly; but I want to know who is the culprit. Can you help me?”“We’re trying to catch him, sir,” said Tom.“I’m afraid I know,” said Uncle Richard.“Yes, and I’m afraid that I know,” said the Vicar, rather angrily. “I’ll name no names, but I fancy you suspect the same body that I did till I found our young friend’s knife.”“And if we or you catch him,” said Uncle Richard, “what would you do—police?”“No,” said the Vicar firmly, “not for every scrap of fruit I have in the garden. I don’t hold with imprisoning a boy, except as the very last resort.”“Give him a severe talking to then?” said Uncle Richard dryly.“First; and then I’m afraid that I should behave in a very illegal way. But he is not caught yet.”

The church clock was striking six when Tom awoke, sprang out of bed, and looked out of the window, to find a glorious morning, with everything drenched in dew.

Hastily dressing and hurrying down, he felt full of reproach for having overslept himself, his last thought having been of getting up at daybreak to continue the watch with David.

There were the pears hanging in their places, and not a footprint visible upon the beds; and there too were the indentations made by two pairs of knees in the black-currant rows, while the earth was marked by the coarse fibre of the sacks.

But the dew lay thickly, and had not been brushed off anywhere, and it suddenly struck Tom that the black-currant bushes would not be a favourable hiding-place when the light was coming, and that David must have selected some other.

“Of course: in those laurels,” thought Tom, and he went along the path; but the piece of lawn between him and the shrubs had not been crossed, and after looking about in different directions, Tom began to grin and feel triumphant, for he was, after all, the first to wake.

In fact it was not till half-past seven that the gardener arrived, walking very fast till he caught sight of Tom, when he checked his speed, and came down the garden bent of back and groaning.

“Morning, Master Tom, sir. Oh, my back! Tried so hard to drag myself here just afore daylight.”

“Only you didn’t wake, David,” cried Tom, interrupting him. “Why, you ought to have been up after having such a snooze last night in the garden.”

“I won’t have you say such a word, sir,” cried David angrily. “Snooze! Me snooze! Why, it was you, sir, and you’re a-shoving it on to me, and—”

David stopped short, for he could not stand the clear gaze of Tom’s laughing eyes. His face relaxed a little, and a few puckers began to appear, commencing a smile.

“Well, it warn’t for many minutes, Master Tom.”

“An hour.”

“Nay, sir, nay; not a ’our.”

“Quite, David; and I wouldn’t wake you. I say, don’t be a sham. You did oversleep yourself.”

“Well, I s’pose I did, sir, just a little.”

“And now what would you say if I told you that Pete has been and carried off all the pears?”

“What!” yelled David; and straightening himself he ran off as hard as he could to the Marie Louise pear-tree, but only to come back grinning.

“Nay, they’re all right,” he said. “But you’ll come and have another try to-night?”

“Of course I will,” said Tom; and soon after he hurried in to breakfast.

That morning Tom was in the workshop, where for nearly two hours, with rests between, he had been helping the speculum grinding. Uncle Richard had been summoned into the cottage, to see one of the tradesmen about some little matter of business, and finding that the bench did not stand quite so steady as it should, the boy fetched a piece of wood from the corner, and felt in his pocket for his knife, so as to cut a wedge, but the knife was not there, and he looked about him, feeling puzzled.

“When did I have it last?” he thought. “I remember: here, the day before the speculum was broken. I had it to cut a wedge to put under that stool, and left it on the bench.”

But there was no knife visible, and he was concluding that he must have had it since, and left it in his other trousers’ pocket, when he heard steps, and looking out through the open door, he saw the Vicar coming up the slope from the gate.

“Good-morning, sir,” said Tom cheerily.

“Good-morning, Thomas Blount,” was the reply, in very grave tones, accompanied by a searching look. “Is your uncle here?”

“No, sir,” said Tom wonderingly; “he has just gone indoors. Shall I call him?”

“Yes—no—not yet.”

The Vicar coughed to clear his throat, and looked curiously at Tom again, with the result that the lad felt uncomfortable, and flushed a little.

“Will you sit down, sir?” said Tom, taking a pot of rough emery off a stool, and giving the top a rub.

“Thank you, no.”

The Vicar coughed again to get rid of an unpleasant huskiness, and then, as if with an effort—

“The fact is, Thomas Blount, I am glad he is not here, for I wish to say a few words to you seriously. I did mean to speak to him, but this is better. It shall be a matter of privacy between us, and I ask you, my boy, to treat me not as your censor but as your friend—one who wishes you well.”

“Yes, sir, of course. Thank you, sir, I will,” said Tom, who felt puzzled, and grew more and more uncomfortable as he wondered what it could all mean, and finally, as the Vicar remained silent, concluded that it must be something to do with his behaviour in church. Then no, it could not be that, for he could find no cause of offence.

“I know,” thought Tom suddenly. “He wants me to go and read with him, Latin and Greek, I suppose, or mathematics.”

The Vicar coughed again, and looked so hard at Tom that the boy felt still more uncomfortable, and hurriedly began to pull down his rolled-up shirt-sleeves and to button his cuffs.

“Don’t do that, Thomas Blount,” said the Vicar, still more huskily; “there is nothing to be ashamed of in honest manual labour.”

“No, sir, of course not,” said the lad, still more uncomfortable, for it was very unpleasant to be addressed as “Thomas Blount,” in that formal way.

“I often regret,” said the Vicar, “that I have so few opportunities for genuine hard muscular work, and admire your uncle for the way in which he plunges into labour of different kinds. For such work is purifying, Thomas Blount, and ennobling.”

This was all very strange, and seemed like the beginning of a lecture, but Tom felt better, and he liked the Vicar—at least at other times, but not now.

“Will you be honest with me, my lad?” said the visitor at last.

“Oh yes, sir,” was the reply, for “my lad” sounded so much better than formal Thomas Blount.

“That’s right. Ahem!”

Another cough. A pause, and Tom coloured a little more beneath the searching gaze that met his.

“Were you out last night?” came at last, to break a most embarrassing silence.

“Yes, sir.”

“Out late?”

“Yes, sir; quite late.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the Vicar, who looked now very hard and stern. “One moment—would you mind lending me your knife?”

“My knife!” faltered Tom, astounded at such a request; and then, in a quick, hurried way—“I’m so sorry, sir, I cannot. I was looking for it just now, but I’ve lost it.”

“Lost it? Dear me! Was it a valuable knife?”

“Oh no, sir, only an old one, with the small blade broken.”

“Would you mind describing it to me?”

“Describing it, sir? Of course not. It had a big pointed blade, and a black and white bone handle.”

“And the small blade broken, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Had it any other mark by which you would know it? Knives with small blades broken are very general.”

“No, sir, no other mark. Oh yes, it had. I filed a T and a B in it one day, but it was very badly done.”

“Very, Thomas Blount,” said the Vicar, taking something from his breast-pocket. “Is that your knife?”

“Yes,” cried Tom eagerly, “that’s it! Where did you find it, sir? I know; you must have taken it off that bench by mistake when uncle showed you round.”

“No, Thomas Blount,” said the Vicar, shaking his head, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the lad; “I found it this morning in my garden.”

“You couldn’t, sir,” cried Tom bluntly. “How could it get there?”

The Vicar gazed at him without replying, and Tom added hastily—

“I beg your pardon, sir. I meant that it is impossible.”

“The knife asserts that it is possible, sir. Take it. A few pence would have bought those plums.”

The hand Tom had extended dropped to his side.

“What plums, sir?” he said, feeling more and more puzzled.

“Bah! I detest pitiful prevarication, sir,” cried the Vicar warmly. “The knife was dropped by whoever it was stripped the wall of my golden drops last night. There, take your knife, sir, I have altered my intentions. I did mean to speak to your uncle.”

“What about?” said Uncle Richard, who had come up unheard in the excitement. “Good-morning, Maxted. Any one’s cow dead? Subscription wanted?”

“Oh no,” said the Vicar. “It must out now. I suppose some one’s honour has gone a little astray.”

“Then we must fetch it back. Whose? Not yours, Tom?”

“I don’t know, uncle,” said the boy, with his forehead all wrinkled up. “Yes, I do. Mr Maxted thinks I went to his garden last night to steal plums. Tell him I didn’t, uncle, please.”

“Tell him yourself, Tom.”

“I can’t,” said Tom bluntly, and a curiously stubborn look came over his countenance. Then angrily—“Mr Maxted oughtn’t to think I’d do such a thing.”

The Vicar compressed his lips and wrinkled up his forehead.

“Well, I can,” said Uncle Richard. “No, Maxted, he couldn’t have stolen your plums, because he was out quite late stealing pears—the other way on.”

“Uncle!” cried Tom, as the Vicar now looked puzzled.

“We apprehended a visit from a fruit burglar, and Tom here and my gardener were watching, but he did not come. Then he visited you instead?”

“Yes, and dropped this knife on the bed beneath the wall.”

“Let me look,” said Uncle Richard. “Why, that’s your knife, Tom.”

“Yes, uncle.”

“How do you account for that? Policemen don’t turn burglars.”

“It seems I lost it, uncle. I haven’t seen it, I think, since I had it to put a wedge under that leg of the stool.”

“And when was that?”

“As far as I can remember, uncle, it was the day or the day before the speculum was broken. I fancy I left it on the window-sill or bench.”

“Plain as a pike-staff, my dear Maxted,” said Uncle Richard, clapping the Vicar on the shoulder. “You have had a visit from the gentleman who broke my new speculum.”

“You suspected your nephew of breaking the speculum,” said the Vicar.

“Oh!” cried Tom excitedly:

“Yes, but I know better now. You’re wrong, my dear sir, quite wrong. We can prove such an alibi as would satisfy the most exacting jury. Tom was with me in my room until half-past eight, and from that hour to ten I can answer for his being in the garden with my man David.”

“Then I humbly beg your nephew’s pardon for my unjust suspicions,” cried the Vicar warmly. “Will you forgive me—Tom?”

“Of course, sir,” cried the boy, seizing the extended hand. “But you are convinced now, sir?”

“Perfectly; but I want to know who is the culprit. Can you help me?”

“We’re trying to catch him, sir,” said Tom.

“I’m afraid I know,” said Uncle Richard.

“Yes, and I’m afraid that I know,” said the Vicar, rather angrily. “I’ll name no names, but I fancy you suspect the same body that I did till I found our young friend’s knife.”

“And if we or you catch him,” said Uncle Richard, “what would you do—police?”

“No,” said the Vicar firmly, “not for every scrap of fruit I have in the garden. I don’t hold with imprisoning a boy, except as the very last resort.”

“Give him a severe talking to then?” said Uncle Richard dryly.

“First; and then I’m afraid that I should behave in a very illegal way. But he is not caught yet.”

Chapter Twenty Six.The Vicar stopped and chatted, taking his seat upon the stool Tom had I before offered, and watched the process of making the speculum for some time before leaving, and then, shaking hands with Tom, he said, smiling—“Shows how careful one ought to be in suspecting people, Tom Blount. We are none of us perfect. Good-bye.”“That’s a hint for us, Tom,” said Uncle Richard, as soon as they were alone. “Perhaps you are wrong about Master Pete Warboys too.”Tom thought about the pears thrown at Pete by his cousin, and shook his head.“Pete wouldn’t have been peeping over the wall, uncle, if he had not meant mischief.”“Perhaps not, Tom; but he may have meant mischief to you, and not to my pears.”Tom laughed, and they soon after went in to dinner.That afternoon, and for an hour and a half in the evening, they worked again at the speculum by lamp-light, so that Tom was pretty tired when they gave up and returned to the cottage.“Going to watch for the fruit burglar to-night, Tom?” asked Uncle Richard.“Oh yes, uncle. I feel ten times as eager now Mr Maxted’s plums have been stolen;” and, punctual to the moment, he stole down the garden, walking upon the velvety lawn, and advancing so silently upon David, that the gardener uttered a cry of alarm.“Quite made me jump, Master Tom, coming on me so quiet like.”“I thought he might be hanging about,” whispered back Tom. “Going to watch from the same place?”“Ay, sir. Couldn’t be better. Once we hear him at the pears we can drop upon him like two cats on a mouse.”“Yes,” said Tom; “but we must mind and not scratch ourselves, David.”“Ay, we’ll take care o’ that, sir. But mind, no talking. Got your stick?”“I stuck it upright in the second black-currant tree. Yes, here it is.”“That’s right then, sir. There’s your place, and I’ve got something better for you this time. I stuffed two sacks full o’ hay, and you can sit down now like on a cushion, and pull the horse-cloth you’ll find folded up over you.”“But what about you?”“Oh, I’ve got one too, sir. I’m all right. Now then—mum!”The hay made a faint sound as they both sat down after a glance round and listening intently. Then Tom pulled the horse-cloth up over his knees, for the night was chilly, and found it very warm and comfortable.Then the various sounds from the village reached him—the barking of dogs, voices, the striking of the clock, the noise of wheels, the donkey’s braying, with a regularity wonderfully like that of the previous night, and then all silence and darkness, and ears strained to hear the rustling sound which must be made by any one climbing over the wall.The time glided on; and as it grew colder, Tom softly drew the rug cloak-fashion over his shoulders, listened to note whether David made any remark about the rustling sound he made, but all the gardener said was something which resembled the wordghark, which was followed by very heavy breathing.“Gone to sleep again,” said Tom to himself. “What’s the good of his pretending to sit and watch?”He secured his hazel, aimed for where his companion sat in the next alley between the blackcurrants, and gave him a poke with the point.But this had not the slightest effect, and another and another were administered, but without the least result; and thinking that he would have to administer a smart cut to wake up his companion, Tom set himself to watch alone.“Don’t matter,” he muttered. “I can manage just as well without him.” And then he sat in the thick darkness, with his ears strained to catch the slightest noise, thinking over the Vicar’s visit that day, and about how he would like to catch Master Pete.It was very warm and comfortable inside the horse-cloth, and must have been close upon nine o’clock, but he had not heard it strike. David was breathing regularly, so loudly sometimes that Tom felt disposed to rouse him up; but each time the breathing became easier, and he refrained.“I don’t mind,” thought Tom. “I dare say he is very tired, and I don’t want to talk to him. He’s company all the same, even if he is asleep. Wonder whether this speculum will turn out all right.”David was breathing very hard now, but if Pete came he would make too much noise in moving to notice the sound. Besides, he would not suspect that any one was watching out there in the darkness.But the breathing was very loud now, and how warm and cosy and comfortable it was inside the rug! The hay, too, was very soft, and the stick all ready for Master Pete when he came. It would be so easy to hear him too, for David’s heavy breathing, that was first cousin to a snore, now ceased, and the slightest sound made by any one coming—and then it was all blank.How long?Tom suddenly started up with but one thought that seemed to crush him.“Why, I’ve been asleep!”A feeling of rage against himself came over him, and then like a flash his thoughts were off in another direction, for, just in front, he could hear a rustling sound, as if some one was stirring leaves, and, stealing forward, he could just faintly see what appeared like a shadow busy at the Marie Louise pear-tree.“Then he has come,” thought Tom, as his hand closed upon the stick he still held. Softly letting the horse-cloth glide from his shoulders, he raised himself gently, feeling horribly stiff, but getting upon his legs without a sound.And all the time there was the rustling, plucking sound going on at the tree upon the wall, as the shadow moved along it slowly.All this was only a matter of moments, and included a thought which came to Tom’s busy brain—should he try to awaken David?“If I do,” he felt, “there will be noise enough to scare the thief, and he’ll escape.”There was no time to argue further with himself. He knew that he had been asleep, for how long he could not tell; but his heart throbbed as he felt that he had awakened just in the nick of time, and he was about to act.Keeping in a stooping position, he crept forward foot by foot without making a sound, till he was on the edge of the walk which extended to right and left; beyond it there was about six feet of border, and then the wall with the tree, and almost within reach the figure, more plain to see now, as it bent down evidently searching upon the ground for fallen pears.One stride—a stride taken quick as thought, with the stout hazel stick well raised in the air, just as the figure was stooping lowest. Then—Whoosh! Thwack!A stinging blow, given with all the boy’s nervous force, as with a bound he threw all his strength into the cut.“Yah!”A tremendous yell, a rush, and before Tom could get more than one other stroke to tell, the pear-seeker was running along the soft border, evidently making for the far corner of the garden, where the fence took the place of the wall.The chord is shorter than the arc; and this applies to walks in gardens as well as geometry, only people generally call that which amounts to the chord the short cut.Tom took the short cut, so as to meet Pete, but in the darkness he did not pause to think. For a moment all was silent, and the enemy had evidently stopped to hide.“But he must be close here,” thought Tom, as he reached the end of the cross walk, past which he felt that the boy must come; and to startle him into showing where he was Tom made a sudden rush.That rush was made too quickly; for he felt himself seized, and before he could do anything, whack! whack! came two cuts on one leg.“Got yer then, have I?” was growled in his ear; and then came loudly, “Master Tom! here! sharp!”“I am here,” roared Tom. “What are you doing? Don’t.”“Master Tom!”“David! But never mind; look sharp! He’s close to us somewhere. I saw him under the pear-tree, and got one cut at him.”“Got two cuts at him,” growled David savagely. “I know yer did. That was me!”“Halloo there! Tom! David! Got him?”“Got him!” growled David. “Got it, you mean. Hi! Yes, sir. Here we are.”Uncle Richard was on the way down the path.“What was the meaning of that yell I heard?” he said, as he drew near.Neither replied.“Do you hear, Tom? What was that noise?”“It was a mistake, uncle,” cried Tom, rubbing his leg.“Mistake? I said that yell. Oh, here you are.”“Yes, uncle; it was a mistake. I hit David in the dark, and he holloaed out.”“And enough to make any one, warn’t it, sir? Scythes and scithers, it was a sharp ’un!”“I don’t think it was any sharper than the two you hit me, David,” said Tom, who was writhing a little as he rubbed.“Why, you two have never been so stupid as to attack each other in the dark, have you?” said Uncle Richard.“I’m afraid so, uncle. I saw something by the tree and heard a rustling, and I thought it must be Pete Warboys.”“But you should ha’ spoke, sir,” cried David, from over the other side now. “Mussy on us, you did hit hard.”“Yes; I thought it was Pete, and that he had come at last.”“Come at last!” grumbled David, as Uncle Richard stood silently shaking with laughter. “Why, he’s been—”Just then there was a scratching sound, a flash of light, and a match burned brightly beneath the wall. Then another was struck, throwing up David’s figure against the pear-tree, as, shielding the burning splint with his hands, he held it quickly up and down.“What are you doing?” said Uncle Richard, as Tom gave a stamp caused by the pain he felt.“Looking for my pears, sir, as I was when young Master Tom come and hit me. There arn’t a single one left.”“What!” cried Tom, forgetting the stinging of the cuts on his leg. “Oh, David, don’t say they’re all gone!”“What shall I say then, sir?” grumbled David; and he then drew in his breath with a hissing sound, and began to rub too.“Do you mean to say the pears have been stolen while you two were keeping watch?”“I dunno, sir,” grumbled David. “They’re not here now; and I’ll take half a davy as they was here at arpus eight.”“Then be off home to bed. Pretty watchmen, upon my word,” cried Uncle Richard, as he turned off to go up to the house; “it’s my belief that you have both been asleep.”“And I’m afraid that there’s about as near the truth as any one can get, Master Tom,” whispered David. “I must ha’ been mortal tired to-night. But you needn’t have hit a fellow quite so hard.”“That’s what I feel, David; but being so stupid: that’s worse than the stick.”“Well, I dunno ’bout that, sir,” said David, still rubbing himself; “them hazels is werry lahstick, and you put a deal o’ muskle into that first cut.”“Well,” said Tom mournfully, “I did hit as hard as I could, David.”“You did, Master Tom, and no mistake. Feels to me it must have cut right in. But I don’t like the master to talk like that. It arn’t nice.”“Come, Tom! Fasten the gate!” shouted Uncle Richard.“Yes, uncle; I’m coming. Now, David, off home.”“Yes, sir, I’m a-goin’; but after all this trouble to lose them pears. Oh, Master Tom, it’s that there as makes me feel most sore!”But David kept on rubbing himself gently all the same.“Pretty pair, ’pon my word!” said Uncle Richard, as Tom came blinking into the light just as the clock was striking ten. “Then you couldn’t keep awake?”“No, uncle. I suppose I must have been very tired to-night.”“The Vicar’s plums last night; my pears to-night. Humph! It’s time that young fruit pirate was caught.”

The Vicar stopped and chatted, taking his seat upon the stool Tom had I before offered, and watched the process of making the speculum for some time before leaving, and then, shaking hands with Tom, he said, smiling—

“Shows how careful one ought to be in suspecting people, Tom Blount. We are none of us perfect. Good-bye.”

“That’s a hint for us, Tom,” said Uncle Richard, as soon as they were alone. “Perhaps you are wrong about Master Pete Warboys too.”

Tom thought about the pears thrown at Pete by his cousin, and shook his head.

“Pete wouldn’t have been peeping over the wall, uncle, if he had not meant mischief.”

“Perhaps not, Tom; but he may have meant mischief to you, and not to my pears.”

Tom laughed, and they soon after went in to dinner.

That afternoon, and for an hour and a half in the evening, they worked again at the speculum by lamp-light, so that Tom was pretty tired when they gave up and returned to the cottage.

“Going to watch for the fruit burglar to-night, Tom?” asked Uncle Richard.

“Oh yes, uncle. I feel ten times as eager now Mr Maxted’s plums have been stolen;” and, punctual to the moment, he stole down the garden, walking upon the velvety lawn, and advancing so silently upon David, that the gardener uttered a cry of alarm.

“Quite made me jump, Master Tom, coming on me so quiet like.”

“I thought he might be hanging about,” whispered back Tom. “Going to watch from the same place?”

“Ay, sir. Couldn’t be better. Once we hear him at the pears we can drop upon him like two cats on a mouse.”

“Yes,” said Tom; “but we must mind and not scratch ourselves, David.”

“Ay, we’ll take care o’ that, sir. But mind, no talking. Got your stick?”

“I stuck it upright in the second black-currant tree. Yes, here it is.”

“That’s right then, sir. There’s your place, and I’ve got something better for you this time. I stuffed two sacks full o’ hay, and you can sit down now like on a cushion, and pull the horse-cloth you’ll find folded up over you.”

“But what about you?”

“Oh, I’ve got one too, sir. I’m all right. Now then—mum!”

The hay made a faint sound as they both sat down after a glance round and listening intently. Then Tom pulled the horse-cloth up over his knees, for the night was chilly, and found it very warm and comfortable.

Then the various sounds from the village reached him—the barking of dogs, voices, the striking of the clock, the noise of wheels, the donkey’s braying, with a regularity wonderfully like that of the previous night, and then all silence and darkness, and ears strained to hear the rustling sound which must be made by any one climbing over the wall.

The time glided on; and as it grew colder, Tom softly drew the rug cloak-fashion over his shoulders, listened to note whether David made any remark about the rustling sound he made, but all the gardener said was something which resembled the wordghark, which was followed by very heavy breathing.

“Gone to sleep again,” said Tom to himself. “What’s the good of his pretending to sit and watch?”

He secured his hazel, aimed for where his companion sat in the next alley between the blackcurrants, and gave him a poke with the point.

But this had not the slightest effect, and another and another were administered, but without the least result; and thinking that he would have to administer a smart cut to wake up his companion, Tom set himself to watch alone.

“Don’t matter,” he muttered. “I can manage just as well without him.” And then he sat in the thick darkness, with his ears strained to catch the slightest noise, thinking over the Vicar’s visit that day, and about how he would like to catch Master Pete.

It was very warm and comfortable inside the horse-cloth, and must have been close upon nine o’clock, but he had not heard it strike. David was breathing regularly, so loudly sometimes that Tom felt disposed to rouse him up; but each time the breathing became easier, and he refrained.

“I don’t mind,” thought Tom. “I dare say he is very tired, and I don’t want to talk to him. He’s company all the same, even if he is asleep. Wonder whether this speculum will turn out all right.”

David was breathing very hard now, but if Pete came he would make too much noise in moving to notice the sound. Besides, he would not suspect that any one was watching out there in the darkness.

But the breathing was very loud now, and how warm and cosy and comfortable it was inside the rug! The hay, too, was very soft, and the stick all ready for Master Pete when he came. It would be so easy to hear him too, for David’s heavy breathing, that was first cousin to a snore, now ceased, and the slightest sound made by any one coming—and then it was all blank.

How long?

Tom suddenly started up with but one thought that seemed to crush him.

“Why, I’ve been asleep!”

A feeling of rage against himself came over him, and then like a flash his thoughts were off in another direction, for, just in front, he could hear a rustling sound, as if some one was stirring leaves, and, stealing forward, he could just faintly see what appeared like a shadow busy at the Marie Louise pear-tree.

“Then he has come,” thought Tom, as his hand closed upon the stick he still held. Softly letting the horse-cloth glide from his shoulders, he raised himself gently, feeling horribly stiff, but getting upon his legs without a sound.

And all the time there was the rustling, plucking sound going on at the tree upon the wall, as the shadow moved along it slowly.

All this was only a matter of moments, and included a thought which came to Tom’s busy brain—should he try to awaken David?

“If I do,” he felt, “there will be noise enough to scare the thief, and he’ll escape.”

There was no time to argue further with himself. He knew that he had been asleep, for how long he could not tell; but his heart throbbed as he felt that he had awakened just in the nick of time, and he was about to act.

Keeping in a stooping position, he crept forward foot by foot without making a sound, till he was on the edge of the walk which extended to right and left; beyond it there was about six feet of border, and then the wall with the tree, and almost within reach the figure, more plain to see now, as it bent down evidently searching upon the ground for fallen pears.

One stride—a stride taken quick as thought, with the stout hazel stick well raised in the air, just as the figure was stooping lowest. Then—

Whoosh! Thwack!

A stinging blow, given with all the boy’s nervous force, as with a bound he threw all his strength into the cut.

“Yah!”

A tremendous yell, a rush, and before Tom could get more than one other stroke to tell, the pear-seeker was running along the soft border, evidently making for the far corner of the garden, where the fence took the place of the wall.

The chord is shorter than the arc; and this applies to walks in gardens as well as geometry, only people generally call that which amounts to the chord the short cut.

Tom took the short cut, so as to meet Pete, but in the darkness he did not pause to think. For a moment all was silent, and the enemy had evidently stopped to hide.

“But he must be close here,” thought Tom, as he reached the end of the cross walk, past which he felt that the boy must come; and to startle him into showing where he was Tom made a sudden rush.

That rush was made too quickly; for he felt himself seized, and before he could do anything, whack! whack! came two cuts on one leg.

“Got yer then, have I?” was growled in his ear; and then came loudly, “Master Tom! here! sharp!”

“I am here,” roared Tom. “What are you doing? Don’t.”

“Master Tom!”

“David! But never mind; look sharp! He’s close to us somewhere. I saw him under the pear-tree, and got one cut at him.”

“Got two cuts at him,” growled David savagely. “I know yer did. That was me!”

“Halloo there! Tom! David! Got him?”

“Got him!” growled David. “Got it, you mean. Hi! Yes, sir. Here we are.”

Uncle Richard was on the way down the path.

“What was the meaning of that yell I heard?” he said, as he drew near.

Neither replied.

“Do you hear, Tom? What was that noise?”

“It was a mistake, uncle,” cried Tom, rubbing his leg.

“Mistake? I said that yell. Oh, here you are.”

“Yes, uncle; it was a mistake. I hit David in the dark, and he holloaed out.”

“And enough to make any one, warn’t it, sir? Scythes and scithers, it was a sharp ’un!”

“I don’t think it was any sharper than the two you hit me, David,” said Tom, who was writhing a little as he rubbed.

“Why, you two have never been so stupid as to attack each other in the dark, have you?” said Uncle Richard.

“I’m afraid so, uncle. I saw something by the tree and heard a rustling, and I thought it must be Pete Warboys.”

“But you should ha’ spoke, sir,” cried David, from over the other side now. “Mussy on us, you did hit hard.”

“Yes; I thought it was Pete, and that he had come at last.”

“Come at last!” grumbled David, as Uncle Richard stood silently shaking with laughter. “Why, he’s been—”

Just then there was a scratching sound, a flash of light, and a match burned brightly beneath the wall. Then another was struck, throwing up David’s figure against the pear-tree, as, shielding the burning splint with his hands, he held it quickly up and down.

“What are you doing?” said Uncle Richard, as Tom gave a stamp caused by the pain he felt.

“Looking for my pears, sir, as I was when young Master Tom come and hit me. There arn’t a single one left.”

“What!” cried Tom, forgetting the stinging of the cuts on his leg. “Oh, David, don’t say they’re all gone!”

“What shall I say then, sir?” grumbled David; and he then drew in his breath with a hissing sound, and began to rub too.

“Do you mean to say the pears have been stolen while you two were keeping watch?”

“I dunno, sir,” grumbled David. “They’re not here now; and I’ll take half a davy as they was here at arpus eight.”

“Then be off home to bed. Pretty watchmen, upon my word,” cried Uncle Richard, as he turned off to go up to the house; “it’s my belief that you have both been asleep.”

“And I’m afraid that there’s about as near the truth as any one can get, Master Tom,” whispered David. “I must ha’ been mortal tired to-night. But you needn’t have hit a fellow quite so hard.”

“That’s what I feel, David; but being so stupid: that’s worse than the stick.”

“Well, I dunno ’bout that, sir,” said David, still rubbing himself; “them hazels is werry lahstick, and you put a deal o’ muskle into that first cut.”

“Well,” said Tom mournfully, “I did hit as hard as I could, David.”

“You did, Master Tom, and no mistake. Feels to me it must have cut right in. But I don’t like the master to talk like that. It arn’t nice.”

“Come, Tom! Fasten the gate!” shouted Uncle Richard.

“Yes, uncle; I’m coming. Now, David, off home.”

“Yes, sir, I’m a-goin’; but after all this trouble to lose them pears. Oh, Master Tom, it’s that there as makes me feel most sore!”

But David kept on rubbing himself gently all the same.

“Pretty pair, ’pon my word!” said Uncle Richard, as Tom came blinking into the light just as the clock was striking ten. “Then you couldn’t keep awake?”

“No, uncle. I suppose I must have been very tired to-night.”

“The Vicar’s plums last night; my pears to-night. Humph! It’s time that young fruit pirate was caught.”

Chapter Twenty Seven.Tom thought the matter over for days as he worked at the speculum now approaching completion. He had met Pete Warboys twice, but the fellow looked innocency itself, staring hard and vacantly at him, who longed to charge him with the theft, but felt that he could not without better evidence.Then a bright thought came as he was polishing away opposite his uncle, and using the finest emery.“I know,” he said to himself, and he waited impatiently to be at liberty, which was not until after tea.“Going for a walk, Master Tom?” said David, whom he encountered in the lane.“Yes; rather in a hurry now.”“Can’t tell him yet, because I’m not sure,” thought Tom; and he walked sharply away for the corner where he had left his uncle in the bath-chair, and all the memories of that day came back as the various familiar objects came in view.“I wonder whether he’s quite well again now,” said the boy to himself; “but he can’t have been so ill as he thought.”But his walk on that golden orange sunset evening had nothing whatever to do with his uncle, for, as soon as he reached the bend where the road began to slope, he struck off to the left in among the trees, trying hard to follow exactly the same track as that taken by Pete Warboys when he was pursued.It was not easy, for the great lad had dodged about among the great fir-trees in quite a zigzag fashion. Still Tom followed the direction, with the scaly, pillar-like trunks looking golden-red in the horizontal rays of the sun, which cast their long shadows in wonderful array, till it seemed to the boy at last as if he were walking through a quivering golden mist barred with great strokes of purply black.“I shan’t get there before it begins to be dark,” he thought, “for this can’t last. Why, it’s like a fiery furnace now burning on great iron bars.” Then there was another change, for the dark-green rough fir-boughs began to be lit up overhead, and the forest looked brighter than ever.A wood of fir-trees is a puzzling place, from the fact that in a mile or two, consequent upon their regular growth, you may find hundreds, perhaps thousands, of places exactly alike—the same-looking tall, red, scaly columns, the same distance apart, the same grey carpet of fir-needles, and the same grey rough-topped, mushroom-shaped fungi growing up and pushing the fir-needles aside to make room for them. Then too the great natural temple, with its dark column-supported roof, has a way of looking different at morning, noon, and eve; and as different again according to the state of the weather, so that though you may be pretty familiar with the place, it is a difficult task to find your way for the second time.It was so now with Tom Blount. There was a spot in the wood for which he had aimed, and it seemed to be the easiest thing possible to go straight there; but the trees prevented any such straight course, and after a little dodging in and out the mind refuses to bear all the changes of course and repeat them to the traveller, who gradually grows more and more confused, and if he does not hit upon the spot he seeks by accident, in all probability he has to give it up for what people call a bad job.“Here it is at last,” said Tom to himself, after following, as he thought, exactly the course he had taken when he chased Pete Warboys for throwing stones at the bath-chair, and coming upon a rugged portion of the fir-wood.“Bother! I made so sure it was,” he muttered, for the opening he sought beside a great fir-tree was not there, and rubbing one of his ears with vexation, he stood looking round again, and down long vistas between the straight tree-trunks.But no, there was not a sign of the spot he wanted, and the farther he went the more confused he grew. It was still gloriously bright overhead, but the dark bars of shadow were nearly all gone, and it looked as if darkness were slowly rising like a transparent mist out of the earth; one minute it was up to his knees, and then creeping up and up till the tree-trunks looked as if they were plunged in a kind of flood, while their upper portions were glowing as if on fire.“I’ll have one more try,” thought Tom, “and then give it up till to-morrow morning. That’s the best time, when you’ve got the whole day before you, and not the night. Let’s see, what did uncle say about my getting to know a lot about optics and astronomy? Of course—I remember: it was nice to be a boy, for he was in the morning of life, and all the long bright day of manhood before him in which to work; and the pleasant evening in which to think of that work well done, before the soft gentle night fell, bringing with it the great peaceful sleep. How serious he looked when he said all that!”These thoughts in the coming gloom of the autumn evening made Tom feel serious too. Then they passed away as he had that other try, and another, and another, pretty well a dozen before he made a rush for what he rightly assumed to be the north-east, and finally reached the road pretty well tired out.It was before the sun was far above the horizon the next morning that Tom went out of the garden gate, and by the time he reached the spot where he had turned into the wood, and gone many yards in amongst the trees, he found the appearance of the place almost precisely the same as he had seen it on the previous evening. There was the roof of the natural temple all aglow, the dark bars across the tall boughs, and the shadows stretching far away crossing each other in bewildering confusion. But everything was reversed, and instead of the shadows creeping upwards they stole down lower and lower, till the roof of boughs grew dark and the carpet of soft fir-needles began to glow.Then too, as he went south, the bright light came from his left instead of his right.“How beautiful!” he thought. “How stupid it is to lie in bed so long when everything is so soft and fresh and bright in the morning. But then bed is so jolly snug and comfortable just then, and it is so hard to get one’s eyes open. It’s such a pity,” he mused; “bed isn’t much when one gets in first, but grows more and more comfortable till it’s time to get up. I wish one could turn it right round.”These thoughts passed away, for there were squirrels about, and jays noisily resenting his visit, and shouting to each other in jay—“Here’s a boy coming.”Then he caught sight of a magpie, after hearing its laughing call. A hawk flew out of a very tall pine in an opening, and strewn beneath there were feathers and bones suggestive of the hook-beaked creature’s last meal.But as he followed the track of the pursuit once more, he had that to take up his attention, till he felt sure that he must be close to the place he sought, but grew more puzzled than ever as he gazed right round him.“It must be farther on,” he muttered; and, starting once more, he stopped at the end of another fifty yards or so, to have a fresh look round down each vista of trees, which started from where he stood.It was more open here, and in consequence a patch of bracken had run up to a goodly height, spreading its fronds toward the light, but there was nothing visible as Tom turned slowly upon his heels, till he was looking nearly straight back along the way he had come, and then, quick as thought, he dropped down amongst the bracken, and crept on hands and knees till, still sheltered by it, he could watch the object he had seen.That object was Pete Warboys, who had suddenly risen up out of the earth, and stood yawning and stretching himself, ending by giving one of his shoulders a good rasp against a fir-tree.“Why, he must have been sleeping there,” thought Tom, “and I must have passed close to his hole. What an old fox he is. Hullo! there’s the dog.”For the big mongrel suddenly appeared, and sprang up so as to place its paws upon its master’s breast, apparently as a morning greeting. But this was not received in a friendly way.“Get out!” growled Pete, kicking the dog in the leg. There was a loud yelp, and Pete shook himself and began to slouch away.Tom watched him till he had disappeared among the trees, and then went back over his track till he stood close to the spot whence the lad had appeared. Here Tom looked round, but nothing was visible till he had gone a few yards to his right, when, to his surprise, he came to the side of the opening down in which was the side hole running beneath the roots of the great fir.Tom had another look back, and, seeing nothing, he leaped down on to the soft sand, felt in his pocket, and brought out a tin box of wax-matches. Then, dropping upon his knees, he lit one, and holding it before him, crept under the roots and into a little cave like a low rugged tunnel scooped out of the sandy rock, and in one corner of which was a heap of little pine boughs, and an exceedingly dirty old ragged blanket.By this time Tom’s match went out, and he lit another, after carefully placing the burnt end of the first in his pocket.This light gave him another view of the little hole, for it was quite small, but there was not much to see. There were the leaves and blanket, both still warm; there was a stick, and a peg driven into the side, on which hung a couple of wires; and some pine-tree roots bristled from the top and sides. That was all.“No pears, not even a plum-stone,” said Tom, in a disappointed tone, for he had pictured this hole from which he had seen Pete issue as a kind of robber’s cave, in which he would find stored up quantities of stolen fruit, and perhaps other things that would prove to be of intense interest.“Nothing—nothing at all,” said Tom to himself, as the last match he had burned became extinct. “All this trouble for that, and perhaps it wasn’t him after all. But how comic!” he said to himself after a pause. “He comes here so as to be away from that dreadful old woman. No wonder.”He was in the act of placing his last extinct scrap of match in his pocket, as he stood in a stooping position facing the mouth of the little cave, when he heard a faint rustling sound, and directly after something seemed to leap right in at the entrance, disturbing the pendulous fringe of exposed roots which hung down, and crouching in the dim light close to Tom’s feet.“Rabbit!” he said to himself.But the next moment he saw that it was not alive, for it lay there in a peculiar distorted fashion; and as his eyes grew more used to the gloom, he saw that there was a wire about the poor animal cutting it nearly in two, and a portion of a strong wooden peg protruded from beneath.“I begin to see now,” muttered Tom. “I dare say I should find the place somewhere about where he cooks his rabbits, unless he sells them.”Tom wanted to get out now. The poaching was nothing to him, he thought, and he seemed to have been wrong about the fruit, so he was ready to hurry away, but something within him made him resent the idea of being seen prying there; and it was evident that Pete had been out looking at his wires, and had just brought this rabbit home.“Perhaps he has gone now,” thought Tom; but he did not stir, waiting till he thought all was clear. Then at the end of a quarter of an hour he crept out into the open hole, raised his head cautiously, and got his eyes above the edge, when, to his disgust, he saw that Pete was approaching hurriedly, swinging another rabbit by the legs.Tom shot back quickly enough into Pete’s lurking-place, and turned to face him if the fellow came in. He did not think he was afraid of Pete, but all the same he did not feel disposed to have a tussle before breakfast. Besides, his leg was rather stiff and painful from the blows David had given to him.But he had little time for thinking. All at once the rushing sound began again, accompanied by a shuffling and a hoarse “Get out,” followed by the sound of a blow, and directly after by a sharp yelp.Then there was a dull thud as the light was momentarily obscured, and another rabbit caught in a wire was thrown in.“Now for it,” thought Tom, and he involuntarily stretched out his hand to seize the stick close to the bed, but clenched his fist instead, and stood there in his confined stooping position ready to defend himself, but sorry that he had not boldly gone out at once.Suddenly there was a fresh darkening of the light, and Tom did seize the stout stick and hold it lance fashion, for the dog had leaped down into the hole, and now stood at the little entrance to the cave growling savagely.“Let ’em alone,” cried Pete, “d’yer hear? Let ’em alone.”But the dog paid no heed. It stood there with its eyes glaring, showing its teeth, and threatening unheard-of worryings of the interloper.Still Pete did not grasp the situation. The dog in his estimation was disobeying him by attempting to worry dead rabbits; and, leaping down into the hole, he kicked savagely at it, making it yelp loudly and bound out of the hole, Pete, whose legs up to the waist had now been visible to Tom, scrambling after the animal, abusing it with every epithet he could think of, and driving it before him through the wood.“My chance,” thought Tom, and he sprang out, and making a circuit, struck out for home without seeing either Pete or his dog again.But Tom did not feel satisfied, for it seemed to him that he was behaving in a cowardly way; and as he tramped along the lane, he wished that he had walked out boldly and confronted his enemy instead of remaining in hiding. Taken altogether, he felt thoroughly grumpy as he approached the cottage, and it did not occur to him that his sensation of depression had a very simple origin. In fact it was this. He had risen before the sun, and had a very long walk, going through a good deal of exertion without having broken his fast. When breakfast was half over he felt in the highest spirits, for his uncle had made no allusion to the adventure in the garden over-night.

Tom thought the matter over for days as he worked at the speculum now approaching completion. He had met Pete Warboys twice, but the fellow looked innocency itself, staring hard and vacantly at him, who longed to charge him with the theft, but felt that he could not without better evidence.

Then a bright thought came as he was polishing away opposite his uncle, and using the finest emery.

“I know,” he said to himself, and he waited impatiently to be at liberty, which was not until after tea.

“Going for a walk, Master Tom?” said David, whom he encountered in the lane.

“Yes; rather in a hurry now.”

“Can’t tell him yet, because I’m not sure,” thought Tom; and he walked sharply away for the corner where he had left his uncle in the bath-chair, and all the memories of that day came back as the various familiar objects came in view.

“I wonder whether he’s quite well again now,” said the boy to himself; “but he can’t have been so ill as he thought.”

But his walk on that golden orange sunset evening had nothing whatever to do with his uncle, for, as soon as he reached the bend where the road began to slope, he struck off to the left in among the trees, trying hard to follow exactly the same track as that taken by Pete Warboys when he was pursued.

It was not easy, for the great lad had dodged about among the great fir-trees in quite a zigzag fashion. Still Tom followed the direction, with the scaly, pillar-like trunks looking golden-red in the horizontal rays of the sun, which cast their long shadows in wonderful array, till it seemed to the boy at last as if he were walking through a quivering golden mist barred with great strokes of purply black.

“I shan’t get there before it begins to be dark,” he thought, “for this can’t last. Why, it’s like a fiery furnace now burning on great iron bars.” Then there was another change, for the dark-green rough fir-boughs began to be lit up overhead, and the forest looked brighter than ever.

A wood of fir-trees is a puzzling place, from the fact that in a mile or two, consequent upon their regular growth, you may find hundreds, perhaps thousands, of places exactly alike—the same-looking tall, red, scaly columns, the same distance apart, the same grey carpet of fir-needles, and the same grey rough-topped, mushroom-shaped fungi growing up and pushing the fir-needles aside to make room for them. Then too the great natural temple, with its dark column-supported roof, has a way of looking different at morning, noon, and eve; and as different again according to the state of the weather, so that though you may be pretty familiar with the place, it is a difficult task to find your way for the second time.

It was so now with Tom Blount. There was a spot in the wood for which he had aimed, and it seemed to be the easiest thing possible to go straight there; but the trees prevented any such straight course, and after a little dodging in and out the mind refuses to bear all the changes of course and repeat them to the traveller, who gradually grows more and more confused, and if he does not hit upon the spot he seeks by accident, in all probability he has to give it up for what people call a bad job.

“Here it is at last,” said Tom to himself, after following, as he thought, exactly the course he had taken when he chased Pete Warboys for throwing stones at the bath-chair, and coming upon a rugged portion of the fir-wood.

“Bother! I made so sure it was,” he muttered, for the opening he sought beside a great fir-tree was not there, and rubbing one of his ears with vexation, he stood looking round again, and down long vistas between the straight tree-trunks.

But no, there was not a sign of the spot he wanted, and the farther he went the more confused he grew. It was still gloriously bright overhead, but the dark bars of shadow were nearly all gone, and it looked as if darkness were slowly rising like a transparent mist out of the earth; one minute it was up to his knees, and then creeping up and up till the tree-trunks looked as if they were plunged in a kind of flood, while their upper portions were glowing as if on fire.

“I’ll have one more try,” thought Tom, “and then give it up till to-morrow morning. That’s the best time, when you’ve got the whole day before you, and not the night. Let’s see, what did uncle say about my getting to know a lot about optics and astronomy? Of course—I remember: it was nice to be a boy, for he was in the morning of life, and all the long bright day of manhood before him in which to work; and the pleasant evening in which to think of that work well done, before the soft gentle night fell, bringing with it the great peaceful sleep. How serious he looked when he said all that!”

These thoughts in the coming gloom of the autumn evening made Tom feel serious too. Then they passed away as he had that other try, and another, and another, pretty well a dozen before he made a rush for what he rightly assumed to be the north-east, and finally reached the road pretty well tired out.

It was before the sun was far above the horizon the next morning that Tom went out of the garden gate, and by the time he reached the spot where he had turned into the wood, and gone many yards in amongst the trees, he found the appearance of the place almost precisely the same as he had seen it on the previous evening. There was the roof of the natural temple all aglow, the dark bars across the tall boughs, and the shadows stretching far away crossing each other in bewildering confusion. But everything was reversed, and instead of the shadows creeping upwards they stole down lower and lower, till the roof of boughs grew dark and the carpet of soft fir-needles began to glow.

Then too, as he went south, the bright light came from his left instead of his right.

“How beautiful!” he thought. “How stupid it is to lie in bed so long when everything is so soft and fresh and bright in the morning. But then bed is so jolly snug and comfortable just then, and it is so hard to get one’s eyes open. It’s such a pity,” he mused; “bed isn’t much when one gets in first, but grows more and more comfortable till it’s time to get up. I wish one could turn it right round.”

These thoughts passed away, for there were squirrels about, and jays noisily resenting his visit, and shouting to each other in jay—“Here’s a boy coming.”

Then he caught sight of a magpie, after hearing its laughing call. A hawk flew out of a very tall pine in an opening, and strewn beneath there were feathers and bones suggestive of the hook-beaked creature’s last meal.

But as he followed the track of the pursuit once more, he had that to take up his attention, till he felt sure that he must be close to the place he sought, but grew more puzzled than ever as he gazed right round him.

“It must be farther on,” he muttered; and, starting once more, he stopped at the end of another fifty yards or so, to have a fresh look round down each vista of trees, which started from where he stood.

It was more open here, and in consequence a patch of bracken had run up to a goodly height, spreading its fronds toward the light, but there was nothing visible as Tom turned slowly upon his heels, till he was looking nearly straight back along the way he had come, and then, quick as thought, he dropped down amongst the bracken, and crept on hands and knees till, still sheltered by it, he could watch the object he had seen.

That object was Pete Warboys, who had suddenly risen up out of the earth, and stood yawning and stretching himself, ending by giving one of his shoulders a good rasp against a fir-tree.

“Why, he must have been sleeping there,” thought Tom, “and I must have passed close to his hole. What an old fox he is. Hullo! there’s the dog.”

For the big mongrel suddenly appeared, and sprang up so as to place its paws upon its master’s breast, apparently as a morning greeting. But this was not received in a friendly way.

“Get out!” growled Pete, kicking the dog in the leg. There was a loud yelp, and Pete shook himself and began to slouch away.

Tom watched him till he had disappeared among the trees, and then went back over his track till he stood close to the spot whence the lad had appeared. Here Tom looked round, but nothing was visible till he had gone a few yards to his right, when, to his surprise, he came to the side of the opening down in which was the side hole running beneath the roots of the great fir.

Tom had another look back, and, seeing nothing, he leaped down on to the soft sand, felt in his pocket, and brought out a tin box of wax-matches. Then, dropping upon his knees, he lit one, and holding it before him, crept under the roots and into a little cave like a low rugged tunnel scooped out of the sandy rock, and in one corner of which was a heap of little pine boughs, and an exceedingly dirty old ragged blanket.

By this time Tom’s match went out, and he lit another, after carefully placing the burnt end of the first in his pocket.

This light gave him another view of the little hole, for it was quite small, but there was not much to see. There were the leaves and blanket, both still warm; there was a stick, and a peg driven into the side, on which hung a couple of wires; and some pine-tree roots bristled from the top and sides. That was all.

“No pears, not even a plum-stone,” said Tom, in a disappointed tone, for he had pictured this hole from which he had seen Pete issue as a kind of robber’s cave, in which he would find stored up quantities of stolen fruit, and perhaps other things that would prove to be of intense interest.

“Nothing—nothing at all,” said Tom to himself, as the last match he had burned became extinct. “All this trouble for that, and perhaps it wasn’t him after all. But how comic!” he said to himself after a pause. “He comes here so as to be away from that dreadful old woman. No wonder.”

He was in the act of placing his last extinct scrap of match in his pocket, as he stood in a stooping position facing the mouth of the little cave, when he heard a faint rustling sound, and directly after something seemed to leap right in at the entrance, disturbing the pendulous fringe of exposed roots which hung down, and crouching in the dim light close to Tom’s feet.

“Rabbit!” he said to himself.

But the next moment he saw that it was not alive, for it lay there in a peculiar distorted fashion; and as his eyes grew more used to the gloom, he saw that there was a wire about the poor animal cutting it nearly in two, and a portion of a strong wooden peg protruded from beneath.

“I begin to see now,” muttered Tom. “I dare say I should find the place somewhere about where he cooks his rabbits, unless he sells them.”

Tom wanted to get out now. The poaching was nothing to him, he thought, and he seemed to have been wrong about the fruit, so he was ready to hurry away, but something within him made him resent the idea of being seen prying there; and it was evident that Pete had been out looking at his wires, and had just brought this rabbit home.

“Perhaps he has gone now,” thought Tom; but he did not stir, waiting till he thought all was clear. Then at the end of a quarter of an hour he crept out into the open hole, raised his head cautiously, and got his eyes above the edge, when, to his disgust, he saw that Pete was approaching hurriedly, swinging another rabbit by the legs.

Tom shot back quickly enough into Pete’s lurking-place, and turned to face him if the fellow came in. He did not think he was afraid of Pete, but all the same he did not feel disposed to have a tussle before breakfast. Besides, his leg was rather stiff and painful from the blows David had given to him.

But he had little time for thinking. All at once the rushing sound began again, accompanied by a shuffling and a hoarse “Get out,” followed by the sound of a blow, and directly after by a sharp yelp.

Then there was a dull thud as the light was momentarily obscured, and another rabbit caught in a wire was thrown in.

“Now for it,” thought Tom, and he involuntarily stretched out his hand to seize the stick close to the bed, but clenched his fist instead, and stood there in his confined stooping position ready to defend himself, but sorry that he had not boldly gone out at once.

Suddenly there was a fresh darkening of the light, and Tom did seize the stout stick and hold it lance fashion, for the dog had leaped down into the hole, and now stood at the little entrance to the cave growling savagely.

“Let ’em alone,” cried Pete, “d’yer hear? Let ’em alone.”

But the dog paid no heed. It stood there with its eyes glaring, showing its teeth, and threatening unheard-of worryings of the interloper.

Still Pete did not grasp the situation. The dog in his estimation was disobeying him by attempting to worry dead rabbits; and, leaping down into the hole, he kicked savagely at it, making it yelp loudly and bound out of the hole, Pete, whose legs up to the waist had now been visible to Tom, scrambling after the animal, abusing it with every epithet he could think of, and driving it before him through the wood.

“My chance,” thought Tom, and he sprang out, and making a circuit, struck out for home without seeing either Pete or his dog again.

But Tom did not feel satisfied, for it seemed to him that he was behaving in a cowardly way; and as he tramped along the lane, he wished that he had walked out boldly and confronted his enemy instead of remaining in hiding. Taken altogether, he felt thoroughly grumpy as he approached the cottage, and it did not occur to him that his sensation of depression had a very simple origin. In fact it was this. He had risen before the sun, and had a very long walk, going through a good deal of exertion without having broken his fast. When breakfast was half over he felt in the highest spirits, for his uncle had made no allusion to the adventure in the garden over-night.

Chapter Twenty Eight.Tom saw very little of Pete Warboys during the next fortnight or so. The fruit kept on ripening, and twice over raids were made upon the garden, but whoever stole the fruit left no clue but a few footmarks behind, and these were always made by bare feet.“It’s that there Pete,” said David; “but foots is foots, and I don’t see how we can swear as they marks is hisn.”Meanwhile the telescope progressed, and busy work was in progress in the mill, where a large tube was being constructed by securing thin narrow boards planed very accurately to half-a-dozen iron hoops by means of screws and nuts.Then came a day when Uncle Richard found that he must go to town again to get sundry fittings from an optician, and Tom was left the task of grinding three small pieces of plate-glass together, so as to produce one that was an accurate plane or flat.It was understood that Uncle Richard would not be back for three days, and after seeing him off, Tom felt important in being left in full charge, as he was in the lower part of the mill polishing away when the door was darkened.“How are you getting on, sir?” said David, as he stood there smiling.“Pretty well; but this is a long job.”“What are you doing, sir?”“Polishing these glasses together so as to get one of them perfectly flat.”“Tchah! that’s easy enough. What d’yer want ’em so flat for?”“So as to make a reflector that will send back a ray of light quite exact—a perfect mirror.”“That’s a looking-glass, arn’t it, sir?”“Yes.”“I wish you’d make one, sir, as would work o’ nights, and show us when Pete Warboys comes arter my pippins. That’d bang all yer tallow-scoops.”“Impossible, David.”“Yes, sir, s’posed so when I said it. But I say, Master Tom.”“Yes.”“That chap’s sure to know as your uncle’s gone to London for two or three days.”“Yes; you can’t move here without its being known, David,” said Tom, polishing away, and making his fingers dirty.“Then, don’t you see, sir?”“No; what?”“Pete’ll be coming to-night, as sure as there’s meat in eggs.”“Think so?” said Tom, who felt a peculiar thrill run through him.“I’m sure on it, sir. There is a deal o’ fruit left to pick yet, and you and me can do that little job better than Pete Warboys.”“Let’s go down and watch then.”“Will you, sir?”“Yes, David, I’ll come. But don’t go to sleep this time.”“Nay, I won’t trust you,” said the gardener, laughing softly. “You’ll get hitting at me again instead of at Pete. I arn’t forgetted that swipe you give me that night.”“Well, you gave it back to me with interest,” said Tom.“Ay, that’s so, sir; I did. But it wouldn’t do for master to come and find all our late apples gone.”“What time shall we begin then?”“Not a minute later than six, sir.”And punctually to that hour Tom stole down the garden and found David, who began to chuckle softly—“Got yer stick, Master Tom?”“Yes; got yours?”“No, sir, I’ve got something better. Feel this.”“A rope?”“Yes, sir, and a noose in it, as runs easy.”“To tie him?”“To lash-show him, sir. We’ll go down to the bottom where he’s most likely to come over, and then I’ll catch him and hold him, and you shall let him have it.”The ambush was made—a gooseberry ambush, Tom called it—and for quite an hour Tom knelt on a sack waiting patiently, but there was not a sound, and he was beginning to think it a miserably tiresome task, when all at once, as they crouched there securely hidden, watching the wall, some eight feet away, it seemed to Tom that he could see a peculiar rounded black fungus growing out of the top.It was very indistinct, and the growth was very slow, but it certainly increased, and the boy stretched out his hand to reach over an intervening gooseberry-bush so as to touch David, but he touched an exceedingly sharp thorn instead and winced, but fortunately made no noise.Hoping that David had seen what was before him, Tom waited for a few moments, with the dark excrescence still gradually growing, till he could contain himself no longer, and reaching this time with his stick, he gave the gardener a pretty good poke, when the return pressure told him that this time his companion was well upon the alert.All at once, when the dark object had grown up plainly into a head and shoulders, it ceased increasing, and remained perfectly motionless, as if a careful observation was being made by some one watchful in the extreme.“Why don’t David throw?” thought Tom, who held himself ready to spring forward at a moment’s notice, “He could not help catching him now.”But David made no signal, and Tom crouched there with his nerves tingling, waiting in the darkness for the time when he must begin.At the end of about ten minutes there was a quick rustling sound, the dark shadow altered its shape, and Tom saw that whoever it was lay straight along upon the wall perfectly motionless for a few minutes longer as if listening intently. Then very quickly there was another motion, a sharp rustling, and the intruder dropped upon the ground.It was too dark to see what followed, but Tom knew that David had risen slowly upright, and uttered a grunt as he threw something, evidently the lasso; for there was a dull sound, then a rush and a scrambling and crashing, as of some one climbing up the wall, and lastly David shouted—“Got him, sir. Let him have it.”Tom darted forward and came in contact with the rope, which was strained tightly from where David hung back to the top of the wall, the lassoed thief having rushed back as soon as touched by the rope, reached the top of the wall, and threw himself over, to hang there just below quite fast, but struggling violently, and making a hoarse noise like some wild beast.“At him, Master Tom! Give it him!”Tom wanted no urging; he seized the rope and tried to draw the captive back into the garden, but the effort was vain, so leaving it he drew back, took a run and a jump, scrambled on to the top of the wall, so as to lean over, and then began thrashing away with his stout hazel as if he were beating a carpet.Thud, thud—whack, whack, he delivered his blows at the struggling object below, and at every whish of the stick there was a violent kick and effort to get free. Once the stick was seized, but only held for a moment before it was dragged away, and then,thud, thud, thud, the blows fell heavily, while, in an intense state of excitement, the gardener kept on shouting—“Harder, harder, Master Tom! Sakes, I wish I was there! Harder, sir, harder! Let him have it! Stop him! Ah!”There was a rustling, scrambling sound on Tom’s side of the wall, and the cracking of the stick, which had come in contact with the bricks, for the prisoner had escaped, and his footsteps could be faintly heard, as he dashed over the grassy field into the darkness, where Tom felt it would be useless to pursue.But just then he did not possess the power, for he could only lean there over the wall, and laugh in a way that was quite exhausting, and it was not until David had been growling and muttering for some minute or two that he was able to speak.“What made you let him go, David?” he panted at last.“Let him go, sir? I didn’t let him go. He just jerked the rope out of my hands, after dragging me down and over the gravel path. There’s no end o’ bark off my knuckles and nose.”“Oh, don’t say you’re hurt, David,” said Tom, sitting up astride of the wall.“Why not, sir? Yes, I shall. I’m hurt horrid. Arms feel ’most jerked out o’ the sockets, and skin’s off the palms of my hands, leastwise it feels like it. Going to run arter him?”“Oh no, it’s of no use. I gave him an awful thrashing though.”“I wish you’d give him ten times as much, my lad—a wagabone. It was Pete Warboys, wasn’t it?”“Oh, I don’t know; I couldn’t tell. It was like something in a long sack kicking about there. I hit him nearly every time.”“Well, that’s something, sir. Do him more good than a peck out o’ our apples. Better for his morials. He ought to have had twice as much.”“But he had enough to keep him from coming again.”“Mebbe, sir; but there’s a deal o’ wickedness in boys, when they are wicked, and they soon forgets. Here, chuck me the rope, and I’ll coil it up.”“Rope! I have no rope.”“Why, you don’t mean to say as you’ve let him cut off with it, sir?”“I!” cried Tom. “Why you had it.”“Ay, till he snatchered it away, when I was down. Hff! My elbows.”“Then he has run away with it, David.”“Ay, and he’ll go and sell it; you see if he don’t. Nice nooish bit o’ soft rope as it were too.”“Never mind the rope, David,” said Tom, jumping down, after listening intently for a few minutes.“Ah, that’s werry well for you, sir; but what am I to say when master arkses me what’s become on it?”“I’ll tell him, David. There, it’s nearly ten again. I say, you didn’t go to sleep to-night.”“No, nor you nayther, sir,” said David, with a chuckle. “I’m sorry ’bout that rope, but my word, you did let him have it, sir. Can’t be much dust left in his jacket.”David burst into a hoarse fit of laughter, and Tom joined in, laughing till the tears ran down his cheeks.“Say, Master Tom,” cried David. “Pippins!”There was another burst of laughter, and then David suggested Wellingtons, and followed up with Winter Greenings, each time roaring with laughter.“He’s got apples this time, and no mistake, sir,” he said.“Yes, David; striped ones.”“Ay, sir, he have—red streaks. But think he’ll come again to-night?”“No, David; so let’s get back and think of bed.”“Yes, and of my bed here, sir. There’s a nice lot o’ footprints I know, and I come down first over a young gooseberry-bush, and feels as if here and there I’d got a few thorns in my skin.”Tom listened again, but all was still, and the garden was as quiet ten minutes later, the ripening apples still hanging in their places.

Tom saw very little of Pete Warboys during the next fortnight or so. The fruit kept on ripening, and twice over raids were made upon the garden, but whoever stole the fruit left no clue but a few footmarks behind, and these were always made by bare feet.

“It’s that there Pete,” said David; “but foots is foots, and I don’t see how we can swear as they marks is hisn.”

Meanwhile the telescope progressed, and busy work was in progress in the mill, where a large tube was being constructed by securing thin narrow boards planed very accurately to half-a-dozen iron hoops by means of screws and nuts.

Then came a day when Uncle Richard found that he must go to town again to get sundry fittings from an optician, and Tom was left the task of grinding three small pieces of plate-glass together, so as to produce one that was an accurate plane or flat.

It was understood that Uncle Richard would not be back for three days, and after seeing him off, Tom felt important in being left in full charge, as he was in the lower part of the mill polishing away when the door was darkened.

“How are you getting on, sir?” said David, as he stood there smiling.

“Pretty well; but this is a long job.”

“What are you doing, sir?”

“Polishing these glasses together so as to get one of them perfectly flat.”

“Tchah! that’s easy enough. What d’yer want ’em so flat for?”

“So as to make a reflector that will send back a ray of light quite exact—a perfect mirror.”

“That’s a looking-glass, arn’t it, sir?”

“Yes.”

“I wish you’d make one, sir, as would work o’ nights, and show us when Pete Warboys comes arter my pippins. That’d bang all yer tallow-scoops.”

“Impossible, David.”

“Yes, sir, s’posed so when I said it. But I say, Master Tom.”

“Yes.”

“That chap’s sure to know as your uncle’s gone to London for two or three days.”

“Yes; you can’t move here without its being known, David,” said Tom, polishing away, and making his fingers dirty.

“Then, don’t you see, sir?”

“No; what?”

“Pete’ll be coming to-night, as sure as there’s meat in eggs.”

“Think so?” said Tom, who felt a peculiar thrill run through him.

“I’m sure on it, sir. There is a deal o’ fruit left to pick yet, and you and me can do that little job better than Pete Warboys.”

“Let’s go down and watch then.”

“Will you, sir?”

“Yes, David, I’ll come. But don’t go to sleep this time.”

“Nay, I won’t trust you,” said the gardener, laughing softly. “You’ll get hitting at me again instead of at Pete. I arn’t forgetted that swipe you give me that night.”

“Well, you gave it back to me with interest,” said Tom.

“Ay, that’s so, sir; I did. But it wouldn’t do for master to come and find all our late apples gone.”

“What time shall we begin then?”

“Not a minute later than six, sir.”

And punctually to that hour Tom stole down the garden and found David, who began to chuckle softly—

“Got yer stick, Master Tom?”

“Yes; got yours?”

“No, sir, I’ve got something better. Feel this.”

“A rope?”

“Yes, sir, and a noose in it, as runs easy.”

“To tie him?”

“To lash-show him, sir. We’ll go down to the bottom where he’s most likely to come over, and then I’ll catch him and hold him, and you shall let him have it.”

The ambush was made—a gooseberry ambush, Tom called it—and for quite an hour Tom knelt on a sack waiting patiently, but there was not a sound, and he was beginning to think it a miserably tiresome task, when all at once, as they crouched there securely hidden, watching the wall, some eight feet away, it seemed to Tom that he could see a peculiar rounded black fungus growing out of the top.

It was very indistinct, and the growth was very slow, but it certainly increased, and the boy stretched out his hand to reach over an intervening gooseberry-bush so as to touch David, but he touched an exceedingly sharp thorn instead and winced, but fortunately made no noise.

Hoping that David had seen what was before him, Tom waited for a few moments, with the dark excrescence still gradually growing, till he could contain himself no longer, and reaching this time with his stick, he gave the gardener a pretty good poke, when the return pressure told him that this time his companion was well upon the alert.

All at once, when the dark object had grown up plainly into a head and shoulders, it ceased increasing, and remained perfectly motionless, as if a careful observation was being made by some one watchful in the extreme.

“Why don’t David throw?” thought Tom, who held himself ready to spring forward at a moment’s notice, “He could not help catching him now.”

But David made no signal, and Tom crouched there with his nerves tingling, waiting in the darkness for the time when he must begin.

At the end of about ten minutes there was a quick rustling sound, the dark shadow altered its shape, and Tom saw that whoever it was lay straight along upon the wall perfectly motionless for a few minutes longer as if listening intently. Then very quickly there was another motion, a sharp rustling, and the intruder dropped upon the ground.

It was too dark to see what followed, but Tom knew that David had risen slowly upright, and uttered a grunt as he threw something, evidently the lasso; for there was a dull sound, then a rush and a scrambling and crashing, as of some one climbing up the wall, and lastly David shouted—

“Got him, sir. Let him have it.”

Tom darted forward and came in contact with the rope, which was strained tightly from where David hung back to the top of the wall, the lassoed thief having rushed back as soon as touched by the rope, reached the top of the wall, and threw himself over, to hang there just below quite fast, but struggling violently, and making a hoarse noise like some wild beast.

“At him, Master Tom! Give it him!”

Tom wanted no urging; he seized the rope and tried to draw the captive back into the garden, but the effort was vain, so leaving it he drew back, took a run and a jump, scrambled on to the top of the wall, so as to lean over, and then began thrashing away with his stout hazel as if he were beating a carpet.

Thud, thud—whack, whack, he delivered his blows at the struggling object below, and at every whish of the stick there was a violent kick and effort to get free. Once the stick was seized, but only held for a moment before it was dragged away, and then,thud, thud, thud, the blows fell heavily, while, in an intense state of excitement, the gardener kept on shouting—

“Harder, harder, Master Tom! Sakes, I wish I was there! Harder, sir, harder! Let him have it! Stop him! Ah!”

There was a rustling, scrambling sound on Tom’s side of the wall, and the cracking of the stick, which had come in contact with the bricks, for the prisoner had escaped, and his footsteps could be faintly heard, as he dashed over the grassy field into the darkness, where Tom felt it would be useless to pursue.

But just then he did not possess the power, for he could only lean there over the wall, and laugh in a way that was quite exhausting, and it was not until David had been growling and muttering for some minute or two that he was able to speak.

“What made you let him go, David?” he panted at last.

“Let him go, sir? I didn’t let him go. He just jerked the rope out of my hands, after dragging me down and over the gravel path. There’s no end o’ bark off my knuckles and nose.”

“Oh, don’t say you’re hurt, David,” said Tom, sitting up astride of the wall.

“Why not, sir? Yes, I shall. I’m hurt horrid. Arms feel ’most jerked out o’ the sockets, and skin’s off the palms of my hands, leastwise it feels like it. Going to run arter him?”

“Oh no, it’s of no use. I gave him an awful thrashing though.”

“I wish you’d give him ten times as much, my lad—a wagabone. It was Pete Warboys, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t know; I couldn’t tell. It was like something in a long sack kicking about there. I hit him nearly every time.”

“Well, that’s something, sir. Do him more good than a peck out o’ our apples. Better for his morials. He ought to have had twice as much.”

“But he had enough to keep him from coming again.”

“Mebbe, sir; but there’s a deal o’ wickedness in boys, when they are wicked, and they soon forgets. Here, chuck me the rope, and I’ll coil it up.”

“Rope! I have no rope.”

“Why, you don’t mean to say as you’ve let him cut off with it, sir?”

“I!” cried Tom. “Why you had it.”

“Ay, till he snatchered it away, when I was down. Hff! My elbows.”

“Then he has run away with it, David.”

“Ay, and he’ll go and sell it; you see if he don’t. Nice nooish bit o’ soft rope as it were too.”

“Never mind the rope, David,” said Tom, jumping down, after listening intently for a few minutes.

“Ah, that’s werry well for you, sir; but what am I to say when master arkses me what’s become on it?”

“I’ll tell him, David. There, it’s nearly ten again. I say, you didn’t go to sleep to-night.”

“No, nor you nayther, sir,” said David, with a chuckle. “I’m sorry ’bout that rope, but my word, you did let him have it, sir. Can’t be much dust left in his jacket.”

David burst into a hoarse fit of laughter, and Tom joined in, laughing till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“Say, Master Tom,” cried David. “Pippins!”

There was another burst of laughter, and then David suggested Wellingtons, and followed up with Winter Greenings, each time roaring with laughter.

“He’s got apples this time, and no mistake, sir,” he said.

“Yes, David; striped ones.”

“Ay, sir, he have—red streaks. But think he’ll come again to-night?”

“No, David; so let’s get back and think of bed.”

“Yes, and of my bed here, sir. There’s a nice lot o’ footprints I know, and I come down first over a young gooseberry-bush, and feels as if here and there I’d got a few thorns in my skin.”

Tom listened again, but all was still, and the garden was as quiet ten minutes later, the ripening apples still hanging in their places.

Chapter Twenty Nine.“And now, Tom,” said Uncle Richard one day, “here we have a perfect speculum or concave reflector, but it does not reflect enough. What would you do now?”“Silver it,” said Tom promptly; “make it like a looking-glass.”“Exactly; but how would you do that?”“Oh, it’s easy enough, I believe,” said Tom. “You get a sheet of tinfoil, lay it on a table, cover it with quicksilver, and then put the glass on it, and press it with weights till the tinfoil and quicksilver stick to the glass, and then you have a regular mirror.”“You seem to know all about it, Tom,” said the Vicar, who had dropped in for a chat, and to hear how the telescope was going on.“I read it somewhere,” said Tom.“And he can always recollect this sort of thing,” said his uncle; “but never could remember anything to do with the law.”Tom looked at him reproachfully.“Well,” continued Uncle Richard, “your process would do for ordinary looking-glasses, Tom, but not for an optical reflector.”“Why, uncle?”“Because the rays of light would have to pass through the thickness of the glass before they reached the reflecting surface,—the quicksilver,—and in so doing they would be refracted—broken-up and discoloured—so that the reflection would most likely be doubled when it came away; that is, you would see one reflection from the silver at the back, and another from the surface of the glass.”“Therefore,” said the Vicar, “we must decline friend Tom’s ingenious proposal, and take yours, Brandon, for as usual you have a plan ready.”“Well, yes,” said Uncle Richard, smiling; “but it is due to the inventor. We must silver the glass, but on the surface, so as to get a reflection at once. Are you going to stay, Maxted?”“If I may,” was the reply.“Very well; but for experiment, as it is all new to me, I think we will try first to silver one of these pieces of the broken speculum. Yes; that largest piece.”The conversation took place in the workshop, and the triangular piece of glass having been brought out, it was first thoroughly washed, and rinsed with rain-water, and then further cleaned by rubbing it well with a strong acid, so as to burn off any impurity, and after another rinsing in clear rain-water it was declared by Uncle Richard to be chemically clean.“A good thing to be chemically as well as morally clean, Tom,” said the Vicar, smiling; “but I’m not going to stand here without asking questions if you don’t, Master Tom. First then, why must the glass be chemically clean?”“So that the silver may adhere to it,” said Uncle Richard, who was now carefully arranging the freshly-cleaned glass, so that it lay on two pieces of wood in a shallow tray half full of water.“My turn to question,” said Tom merrily.“Yes, go on,” said the Vicar.“Why is the face of the glass put in water, uncle?”“To keep it wet and thoroughly clean. Dust or floating spores might settle upon it, and then we should have specks. I want to get a surface perfectly clear; and now, Tom, I want the four bottles I prepared yesterday—fetch them down.”Tom ran up into the laboratory, and brought down four great stoppered bottles, each of which bore a label duly lettered.These he placed on the broad, table-like bench, and on being requested hurried up-stairs again to fetch a large glass jar-shaped vessel, and a graduated measuring-glass.“Now,” said Uncle Richard, “this process is a chemical experiment, but upon reading it I felt that it was as good as a conjuring trick, and a very grand one too. In fact it is good enough for a magician, for it is a wonderful example of the way in which our chemists have mastered some of the secrets of Nature.”“Bravo, lecturer!” said the Vicar. “Come, Tom, my boy, give him some applause. Clap your hands and stamp your feet;” and the visitor led off by thumping his umbrella upon the floor.“Oh, very well,” said Uncle Richard, laughing; “it shall be a lecture on silver if you like—a very brief one, with a remarkable experiment to follow.”“More applause, Tom,” said the Vicar; and it was given laughingly.“I have here,” continued Uncle Richard, “immersed in distilled water—”“Rain-water, uncle.”“Well, boy, rain-water is distilled by Nature, and then condensed from the vapoury clouds to fall back upon the earth.”“Good,” said the Vicar. “I am learning.”“Next,” said Uncle Richard, “I have here a bottle marked A, containing so many grains of pure potash, dissolved in so many ounces of water—a strong alkaline solution in fact.”More applause.“In this next bottle,” continued Uncle Richard, “marked B, I have a strong solution of ammonia.”“Another alkali?” said the Vicar.“Exactly,” said Uncle Richard. “In this bottle, marked C, a solution of sugar-candy prepared with pure spirit. Can I have the pleasure of offering you a glass, Vicar?”“Oh no, thanks,” was the reply. “I will not spoil the experiment by satisfying my desire for good things.”“Will any other member of the audience?” said Uncle Richard merrily, looking round at Tom.“I won’t, uncle, thankye,” said the lad. “You might have labelled the bottles wrongly.”“Wise boy,” said the Vicar; “but, by the way, where’s the lump of beaten-out silver to be affixed to the glass?”“Here it is,” said Uncle Richard, laying his hand upon the stopper of the fourth bottle, which held the same quantity of liquid as the others.“But that’s clear water,” said Tom.“Yes, clear distilled water, but not alone. It contains a great deal of silver.”“Whereabouts, lecturer?” said the Vicar.“In solution,” said Uncle Richard gravely. “Here we have one of the wonders of science laboriously worked out by experiment, and when discovered simplicity itself. Tom, suppose I take a piece of bright clear iron and leave it out exposed to all weathers, what happens?”“Gets rusty,” said Tom.“Exactly; and what is rust?”“Red,” said Tom.“So is your face, Tom, for giving so absurd an answer.”“Yes, uncle,” said Tom frankly. “I don’t quite know.”“Oxide of iron,” said the Vicar.“Oh yes,” cried Tom eagerly; “I’d forgotten.”“Well,” said Uncle Richard, “the oxide of iron is Nature’s action upon the iron. Man produces iron by heat from the ore, but unless great care is used to protect it from the action of the atmosphere, it is always going back to a state of nature—oxidises, or goes back into a salt of iron. That by the way; I am not dealing with a salt of iron but with a salt of silver. There it is, so many grains of a salt of silver, which looked like sugar-candy when I wetted it in the water, and, as you see now, here it is a perfectly colourless fluid. There, I have nearly done talking.”“More applause, Tom,” said the Vicar merrily.“Come, that’s hardly fair,” retorted Uncle Richard. “What would you say to us if we applauded when you said one of your sermons was nearly at an end?”“But we did not applaud the announcement that you had nearly done,” said the Vicar, “but the fact that the experiment was nearly at hand.”“Yes; that’s it, uncle. Go on, please,” cried Tom.“Very well then: my experimental magic trick is this,” continued Uncle Richard. “I am about not to change a metal into a salt, but a salt—that salt in solution in the water—back into a metal—the invisible into the visible—the colourless water into brilliant, flashing, metallic silver.”“The cannon-ball changed from one hat to the other is nothing to that, Tom Blount,” said the Vicar; “but we are the audience; let’s be sceptical. I’ll say it isn’t to be done.”“Oh yes,” said Tom seriously. “If uncle says he’ll do it, he will.”“Well done, boy,” said the Vicar, clapping the lad on the back. “I wish my parishioners would all have as much faith in my words as you have in your uncle’s. But silence in the audience. The lecturer will now proceed with the experiment.”“Yes,” said Uncle Richard, taking the great glass jar. “Now watch the magical action of Nature, and see what is a great wonder. See, I pour eight ounces—fluid ounces, Tom, not weighed ounces—into the glass measure from this bottle. There: and pour them into this glass jar, which will hold eight times as much. From the next bottle I take an equal quantity and pour it into the jar; and from this bottle I take another equal quantity and pour it into the others. Shake them all up together, and I have so much liquid which looks like water, but, as you may have observed, one of them was the limpid silver solution.”“Yes, I saw that,” said Tom.“I didn’t,” said the Vicar; “but boys always do see the critical thing in the conjuring trick. But go on, Professor Brandon.”“I must come to a halt here,” said Uncle Richard.“No, no, don’t say that, uncle,” cried Tom. “You’ve raised us up to such a pitch of expectation.”“Only for a few moments,” said Uncle Richard, “while I prepare my glass. Now then, when I lift out the piece, Tom, you take up the tray, and empty the water into the sink, and bring the empty tray back, place it where it was before, and then come and hold the glass here upon this blotting-paper to drain.”All this was done as requested, and then the lecturer was set free by Tom holding the three-cornered piece of glass, from which nearly all the water had run.“Now observe,” said Uncle Richard, “this is the critical point of the experiment. You see, I take this fourth bottle, and pour the same quantity of this clear liquid into my measure. There—done; and as long as I keep them separate no action takes place, but the moment I pour this clear liquid into that clear liquid, you will see that a change takes place. Look—I ought to say behold!”The contents of the measure were poured into the glass jar.“Gets cloudy and thick,” cried Tom.“And thicker and thicker,” said the Vicar, as the contents of the jar were well shaken up, and then quickly poured into the tray.“Now, Tom, the glass,” said Uncle Richard sharply; and, taking a couple of little pieces of wood, he placed them in the tray at the sides, and then seizing the piece of broken glass speculum with the tips of the fingers of each hand, he quickly immersed the polished face in the fourfold solution, letting one side go in first, and then the rest of the face, till the glass rested about half an inch deep in the tray, its face being perfectly covered all over.“Now watch,” continued the lecturer; “the magic change has commenced, the metallic silver is forming,” and as he spoke he kept on rocking the glass to and fro upon the two bits of wood.“Why, it has turned all of a dirty black,” said Tom, “and as thick as thick,” as the rocking went on. “Why are you doing that, uncle?”“So as to make a regular film come all over, and cause all the solution to be in motion, and give up its silver,” was the reply.“Is it a failure, Brandon?” said the Vicar quietly.“I hope not,” said Uncle Richard; “but of course I am a perfect novice at this sort of thing. It does look though as if I had made a mess instead of a grand experiment.”“Yes, the water has turned pretty inky and thick.”“Hurrah!” shouted Tom enthusiastically; and he caught up a duster and began to wave it in the air.“What is it, Tom?”“Hurrah!” yelled the lad. “Silver! Look, look!”“I do not see any,” said the Vicar, taking out his eye-glasses to put on, “only a greasy look on the top of the dirty water.”“No, sir, silver—silver,” cried Tom excitedly. “I can see no end of tiny specks floating. Look, uncle. Don’t you see?”“Yes, Tom, you are right,” said Uncle Richard, working away at rocking the glass to and fro.“Oh yes, I can see it now, glittering on the surface,” cried the Vicar, as excitedly as the boy. “Wonderful! quite large filmy patches floating. My dear Brandon, it really is very grand.”“Let me rock it now, uncle, to rest you,” cried Tom.“No; only a few minutes more, Tom, and then it may rest and finish.”“How long does it take?” said the Vicar.“Oh, from ten to twenty minutes,” said Uncle Richard; and at the end of a quarter of an hour, which had passed very quickly, so interested were they all, he ceased rocking the glass and left the face immersed in the murky solution, which had resembled very dirty blackish water, with faint traces of silvery film on the surface.At the end of another five minutes the film was in larger patches, and at the end of another similar lapse of time Uncle Richard declared his experiment so far at an end, and lifted the piece of glass out dripping and dirty, leaving the water fairly clear, but with a thick sediment at the bottom, while the dripping face of the glass, instead of being brilliant polished glass, was seen to be coated over with a drabby-white or greyish film.“Double up that piece of blotting-paper, and place it in the window, Tom,” said Uncle Richard; and while this was being done, the darkened glass was critically examined by the Vicar.“I’m afraid you won’t see many stars in that, friend Brandon,” he said.“It does not look like it,” replied Uncle Richard. “But let’s get it dry in this current of air, and see what it is like then. Besides, there is something else to follow. That is only the rough surface of metallic silver. It has to be burnished before it is fit for use. That’s right, Tom. There!”The glass had been placed in the sunny window opening, and this being done, Uncle Richard washed his discoloured hands at the sink.“Now,” he said, “dinner must be nearly ready. Stop and have a bit with us, Maxted, and see what the experiment says afterwards. It will be dry enough to polish by then.”“Oh, thank you very much, but no, really I ought to—er—I did not mean to stay.”“Never mind, stop,” cried Uncle Richard warmly.“Yes, do stay, Mr Maxted,” cried Tom.“It’s very good of you, but I think I ought to—”“Stop,” said Uncle Richard.“Really, I should like to see the end of the experiment.”“And hear the end of the lecture directly after dinner,” said Uncle Richard. “Tom, run in and tell Mrs Fidler to put another chair to the table. Mr Maxted will stay. Now let’s have a walk down the garden till the dinner-bell rings.”

“And now, Tom,” said Uncle Richard one day, “here we have a perfect speculum or concave reflector, but it does not reflect enough. What would you do now?”

“Silver it,” said Tom promptly; “make it like a looking-glass.”

“Exactly; but how would you do that?”

“Oh, it’s easy enough, I believe,” said Tom. “You get a sheet of tinfoil, lay it on a table, cover it with quicksilver, and then put the glass on it, and press it with weights till the tinfoil and quicksilver stick to the glass, and then you have a regular mirror.”

“You seem to know all about it, Tom,” said the Vicar, who had dropped in for a chat, and to hear how the telescope was going on.

“I read it somewhere,” said Tom.

“And he can always recollect this sort of thing,” said his uncle; “but never could remember anything to do with the law.”

Tom looked at him reproachfully.

“Well,” continued Uncle Richard, “your process would do for ordinary looking-glasses, Tom, but not for an optical reflector.”

“Why, uncle?”

“Because the rays of light would have to pass through the thickness of the glass before they reached the reflecting surface,—the quicksilver,—and in so doing they would be refracted—broken-up and discoloured—so that the reflection would most likely be doubled when it came away; that is, you would see one reflection from the silver at the back, and another from the surface of the glass.”

“Therefore,” said the Vicar, “we must decline friend Tom’s ingenious proposal, and take yours, Brandon, for as usual you have a plan ready.”

“Well, yes,” said Uncle Richard, smiling; “but it is due to the inventor. We must silver the glass, but on the surface, so as to get a reflection at once. Are you going to stay, Maxted?”

“If I may,” was the reply.

“Very well; but for experiment, as it is all new to me, I think we will try first to silver one of these pieces of the broken speculum. Yes; that largest piece.”

The conversation took place in the workshop, and the triangular piece of glass having been brought out, it was first thoroughly washed, and rinsed with rain-water, and then further cleaned by rubbing it well with a strong acid, so as to burn off any impurity, and after another rinsing in clear rain-water it was declared by Uncle Richard to be chemically clean.

“A good thing to be chemically as well as morally clean, Tom,” said the Vicar, smiling; “but I’m not going to stand here without asking questions if you don’t, Master Tom. First then, why must the glass be chemically clean?”

“So that the silver may adhere to it,” said Uncle Richard, who was now carefully arranging the freshly-cleaned glass, so that it lay on two pieces of wood in a shallow tray half full of water.

“My turn to question,” said Tom merrily.

“Yes, go on,” said the Vicar.

“Why is the face of the glass put in water, uncle?”

“To keep it wet and thoroughly clean. Dust or floating spores might settle upon it, and then we should have specks. I want to get a surface perfectly clear; and now, Tom, I want the four bottles I prepared yesterday—fetch them down.”

Tom ran up into the laboratory, and brought down four great stoppered bottles, each of which bore a label duly lettered.

These he placed on the broad, table-like bench, and on being requested hurried up-stairs again to fetch a large glass jar-shaped vessel, and a graduated measuring-glass.

“Now,” said Uncle Richard, “this process is a chemical experiment, but upon reading it I felt that it was as good as a conjuring trick, and a very grand one too. In fact it is good enough for a magician, for it is a wonderful example of the way in which our chemists have mastered some of the secrets of Nature.”

“Bravo, lecturer!” said the Vicar. “Come, Tom, my boy, give him some applause. Clap your hands and stamp your feet;” and the visitor led off by thumping his umbrella upon the floor.

“Oh, very well,” said Uncle Richard, laughing; “it shall be a lecture on silver if you like—a very brief one, with a remarkable experiment to follow.”

“More applause, Tom,” said the Vicar; and it was given laughingly.

“I have here,” continued Uncle Richard, “immersed in distilled water—”

“Rain-water, uncle.”

“Well, boy, rain-water is distilled by Nature, and then condensed from the vapoury clouds to fall back upon the earth.”

“Good,” said the Vicar. “I am learning.”

“Next,” said Uncle Richard, “I have here a bottle marked A, containing so many grains of pure potash, dissolved in so many ounces of water—a strong alkaline solution in fact.”

More applause.

“In this next bottle,” continued Uncle Richard, “marked B, I have a strong solution of ammonia.”

“Another alkali?” said the Vicar.

“Exactly,” said Uncle Richard. “In this bottle, marked C, a solution of sugar-candy prepared with pure spirit. Can I have the pleasure of offering you a glass, Vicar?”

“Oh no, thanks,” was the reply. “I will not spoil the experiment by satisfying my desire for good things.”

“Will any other member of the audience?” said Uncle Richard merrily, looking round at Tom.

“I won’t, uncle, thankye,” said the lad. “You might have labelled the bottles wrongly.”

“Wise boy,” said the Vicar; “but, by the way, where’s the lump of beaten-out silver to be affixed to the glass?”

“Here it is,” said Uncle Richard, laying his hand upon the stopper of the fourth bottle, which held the same quantity of liquid as the others.

“But that’s clear water,” said Tom.

“Yes, clear distilled water, but not alone. It contains a great deal of silver.”

“Whereabouts, lecturer?” said the Vicar.

“In solution,” said Uncle Richard gravely. “Here we have one of the wonders of science laboriously worked out by experiment, and when discovered simplicity itself. Tom, suppose I take a piece of bright clear iron and leave it out exposed to all weathers, what happens?”

“Gets rusty,” said Tom.

“Exactly; and what is rust?”

“Red,” said Tom.

“So is your face, Tom, for giving so absurd an answer.”

“Yes, uncle,” said Tom frankly. “I don’t quite know.”

“Oxide of iron,” said the Vicar.

“Oh yes,” cried Tom eagerly; “I’d forgotten.”

“Well,” said Uncle Richard, “the oxide of iron is Nature’s action upon the iron. Man produces iron by heat from the ore, but unless great care is used to protect it from the action of the atmosphere, it is always going back to a state of nature—oxidises, or goes back into a salt of iron. That by the way; I am not dealing with a salt of iron but with a salt of silver. There it is, so many grains of a salt of silver, which looked like sugar-candy when I wetted it in the water, and, as you see now, here it is a perfectly colourless fluid. There, I have nearly done talking.”

“More applause, Tom,” said the Vicar merrily.

“Come, that’s hardly fair,” retorted Uncle Richard. “What would you say to us if we applauded when you said one of your sermons was nearly at an end?”

“But we did not applaud the announcement that you had nearly done,” said the Vicar, “but the fact that the experiment was nearly at hand.”

“Yes; that’s it, uncle. Go on, please,” cried Tom.

“Very well then: my experimental magic trick is this,” continued Uncle Richard. “I am about not to change a metal into a salt, but a salt—that salt in solution in the water—back into a metal—the invisible into the visible—the colourless water into brilliant, flashing, metallic silver.”

“The cannon-ball changed from one hat to the other is nothing to that, Tom Blount,” said the Vicar; “but we are the audience; let’s be sceptical. I’ll say it isn’t to be done.”

“Oh yes,” said Tom seriously. “If uncle says he’ll do it, he will.”

“Well done, boy,” said the Vicar, clapping the lad on the back. “I wish my parishioners would all have as much faith in my words as you have in your uncle’s. But silence in the audience. The lecturer will now proceed with the experiment.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Richard, taking the great glass jar. “Now watch the magical action of Nature, and see what is a great wonder. See, I pour eight ounces—fluid ounces, Tom, not weighed ounces—into the glass measure from this bottle. There: and pour them into this glass jar, which will hold eight times as much. From the next bottle I take an equal quantity and pour it into the jar; and from this bottle I take another equal quantity and pour it into the others. Shake them all up together, and I have so much liquid which looks like water, but, as you may have observed, one of them was the limpid silver solution.”

“Yes, I saw that,” said Tom.

“I didn’t,” said the Vicar; “but boys always do see the critical thing in the conjuring trick. But go on, Professor Brandon.”

“I must come to a halt here,” said Uncle Richard.

“No, no, don’t say that, uncle,” cried Tom. “You’ve raised us up to such a pitch of expectation.”

“Only for a few moments,” said Uncle Richard, “while I prepare my glass. Now then, when I lift out the piece, Tom, you take up the tray, and empty the water into the sink, and bring the empty tray back, place it where it was before, and then come and hold the glass here upon this blotting-paper to drain.”

All this was done as requested, and then the lecturer was set free by Tom holding the three-cornered piece of glass, from which nearly all the water had run.

“Now observe,” said Uncle Richard, “this is the critical point of the experiment. You see, I take this fourth bottle, and pour the same quantity of this clear liquid into my measure. There—done; and as long as I keep them separate no action takes place, but the moment I pour this clear liquid into that clear liquid, you will see that a change takes place. Look—I ought to say behold!”

The contents of the measure were poured into the glass jar.

“Gets cloudy and thick,” cried Tom.

“And thicker and thicker,” said the Vicar, as the contents of the jar were well shaken up, and then quickly poured into the tray.

“Now, Tom, the glass,” said Uncle Richard sharply; and, taking a couple of little pieces of wood, he placed them in the tray at the sides, and then seizing the piece of broken glass speculum with the tips of the fingers of each hand, he quickly immersed the polished face in the fourfold solution, letting one side go in first, and then the rest of the face, till the glass rested about half an inch deep in the tray, its face being perfectly covered all over.

“Now watch,” continued the lecturer; “the magic change has commenced, the metallic silver is forming,” and as he spoke he kept on rocking the glass to and fro upon the two bits of wood.

“Why, it has turned all of a dirty black,” said Tom, “and as thick as thick,” as the rocking went on. “Why are you doing that, uncle?”

“So as to make a regular film come all over, and cause all the solution to be in motion, and give up its silver,” was the reply.

“Is it a failure, Brandon?” said the Vicar quietly.

“I hope not,” said Uncle Richard; “but of course I am a perfect novice at this sort of thing. It does look though as if I had made a mess instead of a grand experiment.”

“Yes, the water has turned pretty inky and thick.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Tom enthusiastically; and he caught up a duster and began to wave it in the air.

“What is it, Tom?”

“Hurrah!” yelled the lad. “Silver! Look, look!”

“I do not see any,” said the Vicar, taking out his eye-glasses to put on, “only a greasy look on the top of the dirty water.”

“No, sir, silver—silver,” cried Tom excitedly. “I can see no end of tiny specks floating. Look, uncle. Don’t you see?”

“Yes, Tom, you are right,” said Uncle Richard, working away at rocking the glass to and fro.

“Oh yes, I can see it now, glittering on the surface,” cried the Vicar, as excitedly as the boy. “Wonderful! quite large filmy patches floating. My dear Brandon, it really is very grand.”

“Let me rock it now, uncle, to rest you,” cried Tom.

“No; only a few minutes more, Tom, and then it may rest and finish.”

“How long does it take?” said the Vicar.

“Oh, from ten to twenty minutes,” said Uncle Richard; and at the end of a quarter of an hour, which had passed very quickly, so interested were they all, he ceased rocking the glass and left the face immersed in the murky solution, which had resembled very dirty blackish water, with faint traces of silvery film on the surface.

At the end of another five minutes the film was in larger patches, and at the end of another similar lapse of time Uncle Richard declared his experiment so far at an end, and lifted the piece of glass out dripping and dirty, leaving the water fairly clear, but with a thick sediment at the bottom, while the dripping face of the glass, instead of being brilliant polished glass, was seen to be coated over with a drabby-white or greyish film.

“Double up that piece of blotting-paper, and place it in the window, Tom,” said Uncle Richard; and while this was being done, the darkened glass was critically examined by the Vicar.

“I’m afraid you won’t see many stars in that, friend Brandon,” he said.

“It does not look like it,” replied Uncle Richard. “But let’s get it dry in this current of air, and see what it is like then. Besides, there is something else to follow. That is only the rough surface of metallic silver. It has to be burnished before it is fit for use. That’s right, Tom. There!”

The glass had been placed in the sunny window opening, and this being done, Uncle Richard washed his discoloured hands at the sink.

“Now,” he said, “dinner must be nearly ready. Stop and have a bit with us, Maxted, and see what the experiment says afterwards. It will be dry enough to polish by then.”

“Oh, thank you very much, but no, really I ought to—er—I did not mean to stay.”

“Never mind, stop,” cried Uncle Richard warmly.

“Yes, do stay, Mr Maxted,” cried Tom.

“It’s very good of you, but I think I ought to—”

“Stop,” said Uncle Richard.

“Really, I should like to see the end of the experiment.”

“And hear the end of the lecture directly after dinner,” said Uncle Richard. “Tom, run in and tell Mrs Fidler to put another chair to the table. Mr Maxted will stay. Now let’s have a walk down the garden till the dinner-bell rings.”

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