and it appeared to be longer still before I
could get away, for Mr Solomon had a lot of things to ask me about the
grape-house and pit. I kept glancing at the wall where the key hung on
a nail, and though another time I might easily have taken it, on this
particular occasion it seemed as if I could not get near the place
unobserved.

At last my time came; Mrs Solomon had gone into the back kitchen, and
Mr Solomon to his desk in the parlour. I did not lose a moment, but,
snatching the key from the nail, I slipped it in my pocket, caught my
cap from the peg, and slipped out.

I was not going to do any wicked act, but somehow I felt as if all this
was very wrong, and I found myself running along the grass borders,
leaping over the gravel paths, so that my footsteps should not be heard,
and in this way I reached the tool-house, where, quite at home in the
darkness, and making no more noise than jingling a hanging spade against
the bricks, I reached up on to the corner shelf and found my lantern and
matches.

There was the little lamp inside already trimmed, and I soon had it
alight and darkened by the shade, slipped it in my pocket, and then
started down the long green walk by the big wall where the espaliers
were trained, and the wall was covered with big pear-trees.

"I feel just like a robber," I said to myself as I stole along to find
Ike and turn him out.

Then I stopped short, for there was a scrambling noise on one side.

"He is awake and trying to get over the wall," I said to myself, and
setting down my lantern by one of the big trees, I went forward towards
the great pear-tree, whose branches would make a ladder right to the
top.

It was very dark, and the great wall made it seem blacker as I stole on
over the soft green path meaning to make sure that Ike had gone over
quite safely, and then go to my moth-hunting.

"It's as well not to speak to him," I thought.

Then I stopped again, for if it was Ike he was either talking to himself
or had some one whispering to him.

"It can't be Ike," I thought, for after the whispering some one jumped
down on the soft bed, and then some one else followed--_crash_.

There was a scuffle here, and some one uttered an ejaculation of pain as
if he had hurt himself in jumping, while the other laughed, and then
they whispered together.

It was not Ike going away then, but two people come over the wall to get
at the great choice pears that were growing on my left.