“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.