titude to
those who had nursed him through his dangerous illness, after saving his
life, by religiously abstaining from making depredations upon their
gardens.

"Which is something," David said with a chuckle. "But I allus told you
so, Master Tom; I allus told you."

Tom, too, proved that the country air and his life with his uncle agreed
with him, for he grew wonderfully.

"But you do sit up too much o' nights, Master Tom," said Mrs Fidler
plaintively. "I wouldn't care if you'd invent a slope up in the top of
the mill; but you won't."

"I often get a nap on the couch down below," said Tom, laughing. "Look
here, Mrs Fidler, come up again some evening, and you shall see how
grand it all is."

"No, my dear, no," said the housekeeper, shaking her head. "I don't
understand it all. It scares me when you show me the moon galloping
away through the skies, and the stars all spinning round in that dizzy
way. It makes me giddy too; and last time I couldn't sleep for thinking
about the world going at a thousand miles an hour, for it can't be safe.
Then, too, I'm sure I should catch a cold in my head with that great
shutter open. I was never meant for a star-gazer. Let me be as I am."

And time went on, with Tom plunging more and more deeply into the grand
science, and rapidly becoming his uncle's right-hand man, helping him
with the papers he sent up to the learned societies, till in the course
of a couple of years people began to talk of the discoveries made with
the big telescope at Heatherleigh.

Then came a morning about two years and a half after the terrible storm.
Tom, who had not retired till three o'clock, for it had been a
gloriously clear night, and he and his uncle had been busy for many
hours over Saturn's satellites, which had been observed with unusual
clearness, was sleeping soundly, when he was awakened by the sharp
rattling of tiny pebbles against his window.

"Hulloo! what is it, David?" he cried, as he threw open his window.

"I told you so, sir; I told you so," cried the gardener. "I allus said
how it would be."

"Some one been after the apples again?"

"Apples! no, sir; ten times worse than that. Pete's took."

"What?"

"Just heard it from our policeman, sir, who has been out all night.
Pete Warboys has been for long enough mixed up with the Sanding gang,
and was out with them last night over at Brackenbury Park, when the
keepers come upon them, and there was a fight. One of the ke