“I don’t mind,” thought Tom. “I dare say he is very tired, and I don’t want to talk to him. He’s company all the same, even if he is asleep. Wonder whether this speculum will turn out all right.”
David was breathing very hard now, but if Pete came he would make too much noise in moving to notice the sound. Besides, he would not suspect that any one was watching out there in the darkness.
But the breathing was very loud now, and how warm and cosy and comfortable it was inside the rug! The hay, too, was very soft, and the stick all ready for Master Pete when he came. It would be so easy to hear him too, for David’s heavy breathing, that was first cousin to a snore, now ceased, and the slightest sound made by any one coming—and then it was all blank.
How long?
Tom suddenly started up with but one thought that seemed to crush him.
“Why, I’ve been asleep!”
A feeling of rage against himself came over him, and then like a flash his thoughts were off in another direction, for, just in front, he could hear a rustling sound, as if some one was stirring leaves, and, stealing forward, he could just faintly see what appeared like a shadow busy at the Marie Louise pear-tree.
“Then he has come,” thought Tom, as his hand closed upon the stick he still held. Softly letting the horse-cloth glide from his shoulders, he raised himself gently, feeling horribly stiff, but getting upon his legs without a sound.
And all the time there was the rustling, plucking sound going on at the tree upon the wall, as the shadow moved along it slowly.
All this was only a matter of moments, and included a thought which came to Tom’s busy brain—should he try to awaken David?