iving his ear a
vicious rub.

"A fellow don't seem to know anything," he thought. "How stupid I must
seem to Uncle Richard. But I mean to know before I've done. Hark!"

He listened attentively, for in the distance a nightingale was singing,
and the sweet notes were answered from somewhere beyond, and again and
again at greater distances still, the notes, though faint, sounding
deliciously pure and sweet.

"Who would live in London?" he said to himself; and a curiously mingled
feeling of pleasure and sadness came over him, as he dwelt upon his
position now, and how happy life had suddenly become.

"And I thought of running away," he said softly, as he looked down now
at the dimly-seen shrubs about the lawn. "Uncle Richard doesn't seem to
think I'm such a fool. Wonder whether I can learn all about the stars."

Just then he yawned, for it was past ten, and the house so quiet that he
felt sure that his uncle had gone to bed.

"Yes, I'll learn all about them and surprise him," he said. "There are
plenty of books in the study. Then I shall not seem so stupid when we
begin. What's that?"

He had put out his candle when he opened the casement to look at the
stars, so that his room was all dark, and he was just about to close the
window, and hurry off his clothes, when a faint clinking sound struck
upon his ear.

The noise came from the mill-yard to his right, where he could dimly
make out the outlines of the building against the northern sky; and it
sounded as if some of the ironwork which had been taken down--bolts,
nuts, bands, and rails--and piled against the wall had slipped a little,
so as to make a couple of the pieces clink.

"That's what it is," thought Tom, and he reached out to draw in his
casement window, when he heard the sound again, a little louder.

"Cat walking over the iron," thought Tom; but the noise came again, only
a faint sound, but plain enough in the stillness of the night.

All at once a thought came which sent the blood flushing up into the
boy's cheeks, and nailed him, as it were, to the window.

"There's some one in the yard stealing the old iron."

The lad's heart began to beat heavily, and thoughts came fast. Who
could it be? Some one who knew where it all was, and meant to sell it.
Surely it couldn't be David!

Tom leaned out, gazing in the direction of the sounds, which still
continued, and he made out now that it was just as if somebody was
hurriedly pulling bolts and