“Well, you said air was good,” said Tom, laughing; and they went down into the workshop. “Mustn’t have that window left open though,” said Tom; and, going to the side, he reached over the bench with the blanket spread over it, drew in the iron-framed lattice window, and fastened it, and was drawing back, when the blanket, which had been hanging draped over a good deal at one end, yielded to that end’s weight, and glided off, to fall in a heap upon the stones.
Tom stooped quickly to pick it up, but as his head was descending below the level of the great bench-table, he stopped short, staring at its bare level surface, rose up, turned, and looked sharply at the gardener, and then in quite an excited way stepped to where the upturned cask stood covered with its blanket, and raised it as if expecting to find something there.
But the glass disc his uncle spoke of as a tool lay there only; and with a horrible feeling of dread beginning to oppress him, Tom turned back to the heap of blanket lying upon the floor, stooped over it, but feared to remove it—to lift it up from the worn flagstones.
“Anything the matter, sir?” said David, looking at him curiously from the door.
“Matter? Yes!” cried Tom, who was beginning to feel a peculiar tremor. “David, you—you opened that window.”
“Nay, sir, I never touched it,” said the gardener stoutly.
“Yes; while I was gone for the saw and wedges.”
“Nay, sir, I come down and just looked about, that’s all; I never touched the window.”
“But—but there was the beautiful, carefully-ground speculum there on that bench, just as uncle and I had finished it. We left it covered over last night—with the blanket—and—and—” he added in a tone of despair, “it isn’t there now.”
“Well, I never touched it, sir,” said the gardener; “you may search my pockets if you like.”