David!" he whispered, as he touched the gardener on the
shoulder--"David!"

"Arn't better taters grow'd, I say, and--Eh? Is he comed?"

"No! Listen," said Tom, thinking it as well not to allude to his
companion's lapse.

"Oh ay, I'm a-listenin', sir, with all my might," whispered the
gardener; "but I don't think it's him yet. Wait a bit, and we'll nab
him if he don't mind."

Silence again for quite ten minutes, and then David exclaimed--

"_Wuph_!" and lurched over sidewise up against his companion, but jerked
himself up again, and said in a gruff whisper full of reproach, "Don't
go to sleep, Master Tom."

"No. All right, I'm awake," replied the boy, laughing to himself, and
the watching went on again, the time passing very slowly, and the earth
which had felt so soft beneath the knees gradually turning hard.

There was not a sound to be heard now, till the heavy breathing on his
left suggested that David was dozing off again, and set him thinking
that one was enough to keep vigil, and that he could easily rouse his
companion if the thief came.

He felt a little vexed at first that David, who had been so eager to
watch, should make such a lapse; but just in his most indignant moments,
when he felt disposed to give a sudden lurch sidewise to knock the
gardener over like a skittle, and paused, hesitating, he had an
admonition, which showed him how weak human nature is at such times, in
the shape of a sudden seizure. One moment he was wakeful and thinking,
the next he was fast asleep, dreaming of being back at Gray's Inn--
soundly asleep, in fact.

This did not last while a person could have counted ten. Then he was
wide-awake again, ready to continue the watch, and let David rest.

"It's rum though," he said to himself, as he crouched there, and now
softly picked a leaf to nibble, and feel suggestions of taking a powder
in a spoonful of black-currant jelly, so strong was the flavour in the
leaf. "Very rum," he thought. "One's wide-awake, and the next moment
fast asleep."

He started then, for he fancied that he heard a sound, but though he
listened attentively he could distinguish nothing; and the time went on,
with David's breathing growing more deep and heavy; and upon feeling
gently to his left, it was to find that the gardener was now right down
with his elbows on the ground and his face upon his hands.

"Any one might come and clear all the pears away if I were not here."

But Tom felt very go