“Why, it’s Tom!” he thought, starting up in bed; and as he was in the act of gliding out, a second thought troubled him—Tom there in the middle of the night! And if the squire heard him he would believe they were engaged in some scheme.
“Tom!” he whispered, as he leaned out of the open window.
“Yes. May I come up?”
“No, don’t. What do you want? Why have you come over?”
“Nobody knows I’ve come. I got out of the bed-room window and ran across.”
“What for?”
“I can’t tell you down here, Dick; I must come up.”
He ran away softly over the grass, and came back in a few minutes with one of the short ladders, of whose whereabouts he knew as well as Dick, and planting it against the window-sill, he ran up and thrust in his head.
“I say, Dick,” he whispered, “I couldn’t sleep to-night, and I went to the window and looked out.”
“So did I. Well, what of that? Here, be quick and go, or father will hear you, and we shall get into trouble.”