table, he deposited the cakes in a plate, which the next minute was
standing beside its fellow in the back of the bookcase.
The boy's next act was to replace the books; but there was not room for
them and the plates, and the consequence was that they projected about a
couple of inches from the edge of the shelf, while when he tried to shut
the glass bookcase door, it too, stood a little way out.
"Don't suppose she will see," he muttered, and, satisfied now with what
he had done, he went and unbolted the dining-room door, and, feeling
very guilty, took his place at the table, poured out his tea, was very
liberal with the sugar and milk, and then helped himself to one of the
two sausage cakes left and a slice of hot bread.
He had got about half-way through Martha's appetising cake and had taken
three good half-moon bites out of a slice of hot bread, thinking deeply
the while, and munching mechanically with his mouth full, but quite
unconscious of the flavour of that which he ate, when the door was
thrown open and Bella entered, making the boy jump and feel more guilty
than ever.
"It's only me, Master Waller. I have just come to see how you are
getting on," continued the girl, as she advanced towards the table,
scanning everything that it held, "and whether I can--oh, my!" she burst
out, snatching up her apron and holding it to her mouth to try and
stifle back an immoderate burst of laughter.
The next moment she had rushed out of the room, this time allowing the
door to bang behind her, while Waller jumped up, staring hard at the
partly closed bookcase door as if to read there the cause of the girl's
quick exit.
"She must have been watching at the keyhole," he muttered to himself,
for a guilty conscience needs no accuser, "and she's gone to tell cook."
But it was something quite different that Bella was telling her
fellow-servant, after throwing herself down in one of the kitchen chairs
and laughing hysterically till she cried and choked.
"Oh, don't be such a stupid," grunted plump Martha, standing over her
and thumping her back. "What is it you have seen? Don't keep it all to
yourself. What are you laughing at? You will have a fit directly."
"Oh! oh! oh-h-oh!" sobbed Bella. "Do leave off, cook. You _hurt_."
"Then tell me what you are laughing at."
"He's--he's--he's--oh, dear!--oh, dear! I never saw such a sight in my
life! I hadn't been gone more than five minutes when--ho! ho! ho! ho!"
"Look here," cried cook, who was enjoying her fellow-servant's mirth,
and who began thumping again at poor Bella's back, "do you want me to
thump it out of you?"
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Do a-done, cook!" sobbed out Bella,
hysterically and incoherently. "Not more than five minutes, and his
mouth so full he couldn't speak, and his eyes staring at me out of his
head, and he had gobbled up nearly all the sausage cakes and all the hot
bread, and I don't know how many cups of tea he had had, but the one
before him was quite full. But oh, Martha, do a-done, and let me laugh
it out, or I shall die!"
Plump Martha's face was wreathed with smiles, and she chuckled a little
audibly at her fellow-servant's mirth, while her pleasant little vanity
was agreeably tickled at the appreciation of her culinary efforts all
the while.
"You are such a stupid, Bella," she said, good-humouredly. "When once
you begin to laugh you never know how to leave off. I don't see
anything to laugh at. Poor dear boy, he'd had no dinner, and only a
morsel of cold pork-pie since breakfast, and he does like my cakes."
CHAPTER SEVEN.
SECRET PREPARATIONS.
Waller's appetite was gone. The girl seemed to have taken it out of the
room with her, and the boy thrust his hands into his pockets and sat
thinking for some time about his plans, and ended by rising from his
hardly touched meal to cross to the bell. But a fresh idea occurred to
him, and, going back to the table, he took his untouched cup, carried it
carefully to the open window, and emptied it upon a flower-bed; then,
returning the cup, he rang the bell, waited till he heard Bella's step
in the hall, and then began to parade in a sort of "sentry go" up and
down in front of the partly open bookcase, while the maid, after a
glance at the boy's averted countenance and frowning face, not daring to
catch his eye for fear of bursting out into a fresh fit of laughter,
began to clear the table.
Neither spoke till the task was pretty well finished, and then the girl
looked up at Waller, next at the table, and lastly about the room.
"Well," she exclaimed, "if I couldn't declare that I brought two more
plates!"
Waller paid no apparent heed to the remark, but continued his "sentry
go," breathing rather hard the while, till Bella left the room, when he
uttered a low sigh of relief.
But the boy's thoughts had not been idle during this time, and as soon
as he was free to carry out his plans he opened the door, listened to
the murmur of voices in the kitchen, and then ran to the bookcase, took
out his supply of provender, had another listen, and then ran with the
two plates upstairs, past the main set of bedrooms, and then up the next
flight to a room in the front which was devoted to his pursuits.
Here he had books, tools, stuffed birds, fishing-tackle, a wonderfully
untidy lot of specimen birds' nests and their eggs arranged on shelves;
in short, in addition to a pallet bedstead and bed that were very rarely
used, a most glorious muddle of the odds and ends and collections dear
to the heart of a country lad, all of which were under an interdict not
to be touched by the brush, broom, or duster of the maids.
Waller's actions gave the key to his thoughts.
The cereal and carnal cakes were thrust into a closet, and the boy
proceeded then to turn down and feel the bed, over which he frowned and
seemed in doubt; but the next minute he had rushed out of the room and
downstairs to his own chamber, to strip a couple of blankets from the
bed, smooth it over again, and make it rougher than it was before, a
fact which he grasped and puzzled over for a moment, before exclaiming,
"Bother!" and, after listening at the head of the stairs, he rushed up
into his work-room with the blankets.
That seemed to him to be all that he could do, till it occurred to him
that the room felt hot and stuffy, so he threw open the window,
fastening back the casement, and stood gazing out at a great rugged old
Scotch fir not many feet away, one apparently of great age, and which
cut off a part of the view over the undulating greenery of the forest.
Quite satisfied now, and with a sigh of relief, the boy went out to the
landing, carefully locked the door and pocketed the key.
"Let 'em think," he muttered with a grim smile upon his lips, "it's a
curiosity I found in the woods."
By this time he was down in the gallery and passing his own chamber,
where he stopped short, bringing himself up with the ejaculation--
"Oh! Bella will be at me about the blankets! Bother! What shall I
say? Tell her to mind her own business," he cried half-savagely; and as
if to get away from his thoughts he ran down into the hall, snatched his
cap from the stand, and then hurried away for the woods.
But it was not in his ordinary free and careless fashion, for his
thoughts haunted him, and every now and then he kept turning round as if
fancying that he was followed. Now his eyes were directed back at the
old ivy-covered house, where he expected to see the maid watching him
from one of the windows. Soon after, when the Manor was hidden by the
clustering oaks that were scattered park-like among the fields, he was
looking over his left shoulder to see if that was the fat village
constable in the distance bending down so as to creep along unobserved,
and not one of his father's mouse-coloured cows.
Hurrying on, and right into the forest, his next fancy was that he heard
a distant shout, one that was answered, though it might have been an
echo, and his heart beat a little faster as he set both sounds down to
soldiers searching among the trees and hallooing to one another so as to
keep in touch.
"Oh, I say," he muttered to himself, as he proceeded, keeping to the
densest portions of the forest, and doubling the labour in threading his
way, "who could have thought that it would make one feel so queer? I
haven't done anything--at least, nothing much--to mind, and here am I
feeling as if I had been guilty of nobody knows what. No wonder that
poor chap felt so bad and pulled out the pistol. What did he say his
name was? Boyne? Let's see--Battle of the Boyne--where was that? Oh,
I know--King James, and he was a Stuart. Nonsense! That couldn't have
had anything to do with his name. Let's see; I had better wait till it
gets dusk, and then--oh, I'll risk it. I'll smuggle him up to the house
and upstairs. But what about Joe Hanson? Mustn't run against him.
He's always pottering about outside the house towards evening, just as
if he thought I wanted to go down the garden and help myself to apples
and pears. Like his impudence, with his `my garden' and `my fruit,' and
all the rest of it; and father said that I was to take what I liked, and
that he should be proud to leave it to my discretion. It will come to a
row one of these days, for I shall hit out at Master Joe, and then he
will go and complain. Bother Joe Hanson! I want to think about that
poor chap lying out there amongst the bracken. What a miserable,
haggard scarecrow he did look, just like some poor beggarly tramp. But
one could feel that he was a gentleman as soon as he began to speak.
There; best way will be to take him boldly up to the front door and
right up the stairs, and chance it. One never tries to play the sneak
and get anywhere unseen without running bang up against somebody."
These and similar thoughts so took up the boy's attention that it was
like a surprise to him when, close upon sunset, and when the shadows
were deepening in the forest, he found himself close to the spot where
he had left the fugitive; and there he stopped short, listening and
then, feeling that he must not seem to be peering about, he took out his
knife, cut down a nice straight rod of hazel, and began to whittle and
trim it, apparently intent upon his task, but with his ears twitching
and his lowered eyes peering to right and left in every direction, as he
seemed to be unconsciously changing his position.
"Wish I were as clever as Bunny Wrigg," he muttered. "He's just like a
fox for hiding, throwing anyone off the scent. He'd have got here
without anybody seeing him, while, for aught I know, I may have been
watched all the time--by soldiers, perhaps. That must have been some of
them I heard shouting. Oh, it is so queer," he muttered passionately,
as he hacked off the twigs of the stout sapling. "Only this morning I
was as happy as I could be, and now my head's all of a buzz with worry.
Wish I'd gone and found Bunny Wrigg and told him all; he'd have helped
me and enjoyed the job. I don't know, though. There's that hundred
pounds reward. I am glad, after all, I didn't trust him. This is one
of the things like father talked to me about where one has no business
to trust anybody but oneself. Here, I mustn't go straight up to the
hiding-place, in case I am watched. Oh, how suspicious I do feel!"
Turning short round, he began to retrace his steps, acting as if he had
fulfilled his purpose and come expressly for that hazel-rod, which he
went on trimming, humming a tune the while, which unconsciously merged
into one of the Scottish ditties about "Charley over the water."
He sauntered on for some distance, till, coming to what he considered a
suitable spot, he glanced furtively to right and left without turning
his head, and then, having pretty well trimmed his rod, he began to
treat it as if it were a javelin, darting it right away before him, and
running after it to catch it up and aim it with a good throw at a tree
some yards away. He went through this performance four or five times
over before aiming for a dense clump of the abundant bracken, into the
midst of which he darted his mock spear, dashed in after it, and did not
appear again, for the hazel-rod was left where it fell, and the boy was
crawling rapidly on hands and knees beneath the great bracken fronds,
keeping well out of sight till, judging by the towering beeches which he
took for his bearings, he stopped at last, hot and panting with his
exertions, close to where he had left the young spy.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
HELPING THE FUGITIVE.
Waller had managed so well that he had only a few yards to go; in fact,
if the task had been undertaken by the tall gipsy-like woodland dweller,
to whom he had referred as Bunny--a nickname, by the way, bestowed upon
him by the boy from his rabbit-like habits, though they were more foxy,
as Waller felt, but he liked him too well to brand him with such a
name--it could not have been done better.
The next minute, with a vivid recollection of the pistol which had been
thrust into the fugitive's breast, the boy was creeping forward and
listening, till, as he came nearer, he became aware of a deep stertorous
breathing, almost a snore, and, closing up, he bent over, to lay one
hand on the hidden pistol, so as to be well on his defence, while with
the other he gently shook the deep sleeper.
Waller expected that the poor fellow would start up in wild affright,
but his touch only resulted in a dull, incoherent muttering, and the
shake had to be repeated two or three times before the fugitive slowly
sat up and gazed at him vacantly, laying one hand upon his burning
forehead the while.
"Yes," he said slowly, "What is it?"
"I have come back," said Waller. "Don't you know me? Why, you are not
half awake yet. It will be dark soon, quite dark by the time we get
home, and I am going to take you there."
The poor fellow passed his hand two or three times across his forehead,
as if to clear away some mist that hindered his perceptions.
"I say, you have had a splendid sleep," continued Waller. "Feel better
now?"
"Sleep? Better? I don't know--don't know. Yes, I do. You came and
brought me something to eat, and I have been to sleep and dreaming
about--Oh!" he groaned, and, leaning forward and covering his face with
his hands, he began to rock himself to and fro as if the mental agony
from which he suffered was too hard to bear.
Waller looked on in silence for a few moments, before reaching forward
and laying his hand upon the poor fellow's shoulder, when the touch
acted like magic. His hands were caught in those of the fugitive, who
rose painfully to his feet and spoke in a low, quick, hurried way.
"Yes," he said, "I am ready. Take me where you said; but," he added,
glancing sharply round with a wild and fevered look in his eyes, "did
the soldiers come, or did I dream it?"
"Dreamt it," said Waller emphatically.
"Ah!" was sighed. "Am I speaking properly? I--I don't quite know what
I say. It's my head, I suppose--my head."
"You are not quite awake," said Waller encouragingly. "There, come down
to the river and bathe your face. It's getting beautifully cool now;
and then we will go gently home through the woods."
The poor fellow nodded quickly, obeying his companion to the letter, and
seeming to trust himself entirely in his hands.
He seemed a little clearer after lying down and bathing his face; but as
they walked slowly towards the Manor there were moments when he began to
turn dizzy and reeled. But they reached the old Elizabethan house at
last, quite in the dusk of evening, and, following out his settled
plans, Waller led his companion in through the porch, across the hall,
and upstairs, quite unseen, and rather breathless himself, while his
companion seemed to have grown calmer. He unlocked the door of his den,
threw it open, and closed it upon them with a sigh of relief, as he
said,--
"There, sit down in that old chair--gently, for the bottom's broken.
This is my own room." Then, as the poor fellow sank back heavily in the
very ancient chair, one that Waller had rescued from the lumber-room for
his own particular use, he said, "I say: I won't be above a minute.
Don't you stir. I am going downstairs to get a light."
There was no reply, and, hurriedly descending, Waller fetched candle and
stick, to return and find the "something" that he had brought in from
the forest fast asleep once more.
"Now we shall be all right," he said. "I have got some supper for you.
What, asleep again?" he continued, more gently. "Well, you had better
lie down. Here, I say, have a nap on the bed. Get up, and I'll help
you. You had better undress."
The poor fellow grasped a portion of his wishes, and rose mechanically,
reeled to the bed, and fell across it with his legs trailing upon the
floor; but a few minutes after, with his young host's help, he was
properly installed outside, dressed as he was, to sink at once into a
deep, feverish sleep.
There was no suppering that night for the stranger, who slept on,
muttering quickly at intervals, and was still sleeping when Waller stole
up to his side again and again at intervals during what seemed to be an
interminably long night; for though he pretended to go to bed, the boy
could not sleep for more than an hour at a time, and when he did it was
only to start up from some troubled dream connected with the incidents
of the past day, for he was suffering badly from a new complaint--
fugitive on the brain.
CHAPTER NINE.
IN HIDING.
"What's he doing now?" said Martha. "Isn't going to be ill, is he?"
"Ill?" said Bella, contemptuously. "Not he!"
"But he's shut up in that attic, isn't he?"
"Yes, I told you so. Got another of those whim-whams in his head, and
making a litter of some kind--skinning snakes or something that he's
caught in the woods."
"Ugh!" ejaculated cook. "If there's anything I can't abear it's them
nasty scrawmy things. Did you tell him his dinner was ready?"
"Yes, and he nearly snapped my head off."
"What does he want to be skinning snakes for?" said the cook.
"Oh, I don't know--horrid things! He's got about half a dozen up there
as he did last year; peels all the skins off, same as you do with the
eels, and then turns them inside out again, fills them full of sand, and
then twists them up and leaves them to dry."
"And what then?" said cook.
"Pours all the sand out again."
"But, I say, has he got them up there alive before he skins them?"
"I don't know as he has got any at all," said Bella shortly.
"Then why did you say he had?"
"I didn't. I only said I supposed he had, because he's always skinning
something or another. He's got owls, and stoats, and all sorts of
things that he gets in the forest, or that nasty fellow Bunny Wrigg
brings for him."
"Oh!" said the cook. "Because I am not going to sleep upstairs if he's
got live snakes to come crawling out of his room at all times in the
night."
But though guilty of many such acts as the maid charged him with, Waller
was not engaged with any taxidermic preparations, for his time during
the past two days had been taken up in attendance upon the young
fugitive.
For the first day the latter ate nothing, but passed the full
twenty-four hours in a feverish sleep. Then he seemed to throw off the
fever, and, thanks to his host, who was eager to supply him, gradually
transformed himself from the miserable, ragged, famished object into
such a specimen of humanity as made Waller smile with satisfaction.
"Why," he said, "if the soldiers did come they wouldn't know you again."
"Again?" replied the lad. "They've never seen me."
"Well, I mean they wouldn't take you for a--for a--"
"There, say it," cried the lad sadly, "For a spy."
"I didn't mean spy," said Waller. "I meant fugitive."
"But they would. If I were questioned, what account could I give of
myself? I have tried to do the work for which I came--for which we
came--and I have failed. I am not going to tell a lie."
"No, of course not," said Waller hotly; "but you might hold your tongue,
or tell any impudent beggar who dared to ask you questions, to mind his
own business, if he didn't want to be kicked."
"Should you speak to the soldiers like that?" said Boyne, with a smile.
"Of course," cried Waller. "What do I care for the soldiers?"
"Ah!" sighed the lad. "But never mind that. I am so grateful to you
for all you have done."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried Waller, flushing. "People are always hospitable
in the country."
"So I have heard," said the other; "but, if I had been your own brother
you could not have done more for me. You have saved my life."
"Oh, nonsense! I tell you. You make too much of it. I never had a
brother, but fellows whom I have known at Winchester who have--they are
not so very fond of doing things for one another. They generally like
fighting and knocking one another about. I suppose they oughtn't to,
but they quarrel more with their brothers than they do with anyone else.
But you mustn't touch their brothers, for if you do--oh my! You have
them on to you at once. Here, I say, I wish you wouldn't talk like
that."
"Well, I will not. I don't want to go away and leave you, but I must.
I can think of nothing else."
"But why?"
"Because I am shut up here alone so much, a prisoner."
"Yes, but it's only until it's safe for you to go away. You must see
that you ought to be patient. There, I'll bring you up books to read,
to amuse you."
"I can't read them. They wouldn't amuse me with my mind in this state."
"Well; then, have a look at some of my things," cried Waller, pulling
out the drawer of a big press. "These are all traps and springs with
which I catch birds and animals in the forest. Bunny Wrigg taught me
how to make them and how to use them. I wish you knew him. He's a
capital fellow, and knows the forest ten times better than I do."
"Oh, I don't want to know the forest--nor, your friend," said the lad
wearily. "I want to be free to come and go--as free as the birds and
those little animals, the squirrels, that I see out of the window."
"Yes, of course you do, and so you shall be soon," cried Waller. "But
you haven't quite recovered yet from that feverishness and all you went
through. I say, have a look in this drawer."
Waller thrust the open one in and pulled out another. "Look here, these
are my old nets with which we drag the hammer pond, and catch the carp
and tench; great golden fellows they are, some of them; but the worst of
it is the pond's so deep that the fish dive under the net and escape."
"And those which do not," said the lad sadly, "you take in that net and
make prisoners of them. Poor things! And what good are they to you
when you have caught them?"
"Good? Good to eat! I say, what a fellow you are to talk of the fish
one catches as prisoners! Carp and tench are not human beings."
"No, they are not human beings," said the lad, smiling sadly; "but they
are prisoners, the same as I am."
"Oh, I say, what stuff! To call yourself a prisoner, when you are only
a visitor here, and could come and go just as you like--at least, not
quite, for it wouldn't be safe; but it will be soon."
"What's that coil of new rope for?"
"That?" cried Waller. "Oh, that's a new rope for my drag-net. The old
one was quite worn out. You shall help me to fit this on if you like."
"Thank you. I'll help you if you wish."
"Well, I do wish, when you get well; but I don't care to see you in the
dumps like this. Of course I know what it is: it's being shut up in
this room for so long. A few good walks in the forest would make you as
right as could be."
"Yes," said the lad wearily. "I feel as if I should like to be out
again, for I often think when I am shut up here that it's like being a
bird in a cage."
"Ah, you won't feel that long," said Waller.
It was the very next day when, after taking his new friend a selection
of what he considered interesting books, Waller announced that he should
not come upstairs again till the evening, for he had several things to
do, and among others to write a letter to his father in London, and then
take it to the village post-office for despatch.
"I don't think that either of the maids is likely to come up," said
Waller, at parting; "but if they should try the door, all you have got
to do is to keep quite still. Of course, you will lock yourself in as
soon as I am gone. Shall I bring you anything else to eat before I go?"
"No," said the lad, with a weary look of disgust. "You bring me too
much as it is; more than I care to have. Don't bring me any more till I
ask."