“Yes; all right. He hasn’t come then yet.”
“Not yet, sir. Here you are; now you can kneel down alongside o’ me. Mustn’t be no more talking.”
Tom knelt on the soft horse-cloth, feeling his knees indent the soil beneath; and then with his head below the tops of the black-currant bushes, whose leaves gave out their peculiar medicinal smell, he found that though perfectly hidden he could dimly make out the top of the garden wall, where the pears hung thickly not many feet away, and the watchers were so situated that a spring would take them into the path, close to any marauder who might come.
“One moment, David,” whispered Tom, “and then I won’t speak again. Which way do you think he’ll come?”
“Over the wall from the field, and then up along the bed, so as his feet arn’t heard. If I hear anything I nips you in the leg. If you hear anything, you nips me.”
“Not too hard,” said Tom, and the watch began.
At first there was the rattle of a cart heard coming along the road, a long way off, and Tom knelt there sniffing the odour of the blackcurrants, and trying to calculate where the cart would be. But after a time that reached the village and passed on, and the tramp of the horse and the rattle of the wheels died out.
Then he listened to the various sounds in the village—voices, the closing of doors, the rattle of shutters; and all at once the church clock began to strike, the nine thumps on the bell coming very slowly, and the last leaving a quivering, booming sound in the air which lasted for some time.
After this all was very still, and it was quite a relief to hear the barking of a dog from some distance away, followed by the faintly-heard rattle of a chain drawn over the entrance of the kennel, when the barking ceased, and repeated directly after as the barking began again.
Everything then was wonderfully still and dark, till a peculiar cry arose—a weird, strange cry, as of something in pain, which thrilled Tom’s nerves.