CHAPTER X.
BURGLARS.
NEXT morning Vivian awoke to find Ronald standing on a chair peering through a crevice of the blind. The remembrance of yesterday’s disaster flashed into his mind, and he was wide awake at once.
‘Whatever are you doing?’ he asked querulously. ‘It’s gray-dark, so you can’t see anything.’
‘I can’t think what in the world is the matter,’ answered Ronald in an excited whisper. ‘I’ve been awake since five—I heard it strike on the hall clock; and I think every one else in the house has been awake too. They have been opening and shutting doors, and talking in the hall, and some one went right out of the house and down to the lodge. I think it must have been Uncle Walter, for I heard footsteps on the gravel, and it was his cough, and after a while he came back with some one, for I heard them talking. They came upstairs, for I heard Aunt Dora’s voice, and now they are outside again. Somehow, I fancy it is a policeman; I can just see the top of his helmet. He is walking up and down the gravel.’
A policeman! Vivian turned cold with terror. He had dreamt of discovery and punishment, but he had never dreamt of anything as bad as this. Surely Uncle Walter would never be so cruel as to send him to jail, even although he had broken two windows and taken a toy pistol.
But the pistol was stolen, and Uncle Walter could be very strict. The thought made him desperate, and he sat up in silence, and began to grope about for his clothes. If he could only dress quickly, he thought, before it grew quite light, he might slip unnoticed down the back stairs and run away. Where he could run to could be settled later. Vague ideas of getting to the docks crossed his mind; he knew that there were docks somewhere in London, and if he once reached them he might get on board one of the boats as cabin-boy or something, and sail to America or Australia. At present his one mad wish was to escape from the policeman and from the discovery which was sure to come—nay, which had come already.
‘There are two of them,’ whispered Ronald excitedly, ‘and they seem to be looking for something among the bushes. I do wonder what has happened. Now they have gone round to the garden, and there is Uncle Walter standing on the doorstep talking to a gentleman in ordinary clothes. I can see him, for the gas in the hall is lit.’