Now Moss, for the first time, bethought himself of the boy he had brought in from the meadow; and now, for the first time, he told his family of that encounter.
“I never saw such a simpleton,” his father declared. “There, go along and work! Now, don’t cry, but hold up like a man and work.”
Moss did cry; he could not help it; but he worked too. He would fain have been one of the watchers, moreover; but his father said he was too young. For two nights he was ordered to bed, when Allan took his dark lantern, and went down to the pent-house; the first night accompanied by his father, and the next by Harry Hardiman, who had come on the first summons. By the third evening, Moss was so miserable that his sisters interceded for him, and he was allowed to go down with his old friend Harry.
It was a starlight night, without a moon. The low country lay dim, but unobscured by mist. After a single remark on the fineness of the night, Harry was silent. Silence was their first business. They stole round the fence as if they had been thieves themselves, listened for some time before they let themselves in at the gate, passed quickly in, and locked the gate (the lock of which had been well oiled), went behind every screen, and along every path, to be sure that no one was there, and finally, perceiving that the remaining ducks were safe, settled themselves in the darkness of the pent-house.
There they sat, hour after hour, listening. If there had been no sound, perhaps they could not have borne the effort; but the sense was relieved by the bark of a dog at a distance, and then by the hoot of the owl that was known to have done them good service in mousing, many a time; and once, by the passage of a train on the railway above. When these were all over, poor Moss had much ado to keep awake, and at last his head sank on Harry’s shoulder, and he forgot where he was, and everything else in the world. He was awakened by Harry’s moving, and then whispering quite into his ear:—
“Sit you still. I hear somebody yonder. No—sit you still. I won’t go far—not out of call; but I must get between them and the gate.”
With his lantern under his coat, Harry stole forth, and Moss stood up, all alone in the darkness and stillness. He could hear his heart beat, but nothing else, till footsteps on the path came nearer and nearer. They came quite up; they came in, actually into the arbor; and then the ducks were certainly fluttering. In an instant more, there was a gleam of light upon the white plumage of the ducks, and then light enough to show that this was the gypsy boy, with a dark lantern hung round his neck, and, at the same moment, to show the gypsy boy that Moss was there. The two boys stood, face to face, motionless from utter amazement, and the ducks had scuttled and waddled away before they recovered themselves. Then, Moss flew at him in a glorious passion, at once of rage and fear.
“Leave him to me, Moss,” cried Harry, casting light upon the scene from his lantern, while he collared the thief with the other hand. “Let go, I say, Moss. There, now we’ll go round and be sure whether there is any one else in the garden, and then we’ll lodge this young rogue where he will be safe.”
Nobody was there, and they went home in the dawn, locked up the thief in the shed, and slept through what remained of the night.
It was about Mr. Nelson’s usual time for coming down the line; and it was observed that he now always stopped at this station till the next train passed,—probably because it was a pleasure to him to look upon the improvement of the place. It was no surprise therefore to Woodruffe to see him standing on the embankment after breakfast; and it was natural that Mr. Nelson should be immediately told that the gypsies were here again, and how one of them was caught thieving.