I was not going to do any wicked act, but somehow I felt as if all this
was very wrong, and I found myself running along the grass borders,
leaping over the gravel paths, so that my footsteps should not be heard,
and in this way I reached the tool-house, where, quite at home in the
darkness, and making no more noise than jingling a hanging spade against
the bricks, I reached up on to the corner shelf and found my lantern and
matches.
There was the little lamp inside already trimmed, and I soon had it
alight and darkened by the shade, slipped it in my pocket, and then
started down the long green walk by the big wall where the espaliers
were trained, and the wall was covered with big pear-trees.
"I feel just like a robber," I said to myself as I stole along to find
Ike and turn him out.
Then I stopped short, for there was a scrambling noise on one side.
"He is awake and trying to get over the wall," I said to myself, and
setting down my lantern by one of the big trees, I went forward towards
the great pear-tree, whose branches would make a ladder right to the
top.
It was very dark, and the great wall made it seem blacker as I stole on
over the soft green path meaning to make sure that Ike had gone over
quite safely, and then go to my moth-hunting.
"It's as well not to speak to him," I thought.
Then I stopped again, for if it was Ike he was either talking to himself
or had some one whispering to him.
"It can't be Ike," I thought, for after the whispering some one jumped
down on the soft bed, and then some one else followed--crash.
There was a scuffle here, and some one uttered an ejaculation of pain as
if he had hurt himself in jumping, while the other laughed, and then
they whispered together.
It was not Ike going away then, but two people come over the wall to get
at the great choice pears that were growing on my left.
"What a shame," I thought; and as I recalled a similar occurrence at Old
Brownsmith's I wished that Shock were with me to help protect Sir
Francis' choice fruit.
I ought to have slipped off back and told Mr Solomon, who would have
made the gardener come from the lower cottage; but I did not think of
that; I only listened and heard one of the thieves whisper to the other: "Get up; you aren't hurt. Come along."
Then there was a rustling as they forced their way among the bushes, and
went bang up against an espalier. This they skirted, coming close to me
as I stood in the shadow of a pear-tree.