Those footsteps were still to be heard when the boy thrust the ladder over, rose very slowly to a sitting position, and tried to look round him, seeing more stars than he had when he knelt at his bedroom window, these too having a peculiar circling motion of their own, which made his head ache violently.
“He’s got the best of me again,” said the boy rather piteously, “for it’s no good to go after him now.”
Tom had the organ of order sufficiently developed to make him wish to pick up and return the ladder instead of leaving it lying in the yard; but he felt shaken up, and the feeling of confusion came upon him again so strongly that he stood thinking for a few minutes, and then went and unlocked the gate, listened a while, and then locked it after him and crossed the lane into the garden.
The next minute he was under his bedroom window, feeling unwilling to climb up, for he was getting cold and stiff; but he dragged himself on to the sill, got in, and without stopping to undress, threw himself on the bed and fell into a sound sleep, in which he dreamed that two policemen came down from London with the big black prison van and carried off Pete Warboys, who was taken to the Old Bailey to be tried for stealing the round wooden dome-shaped structure which formed the top of the mill.
He was awakened next morning soon after six by the pattering at his window of some scraps of fine gravel, and jumping off the bed he found David below on the lawn.
“Here, look sharp and come down, Master Tom,” cried the gardener excitedly.
“What’s the matter?” said Tom, whose mind was rather blank as to the past night’s business.
“Some ’un’s been in the night and stole the tallowscoop.”
“Nonsense!”
“But they have, sir. It’s as fact as fack. There’s the top wooden window open, and Jellard’s long fruit-ladder lying in the yard.”