The New Forest Spy Part 9

"No, Master Waller. I only heard it walking. Somewhere up by your room--I mean your den, as you call it. And then all in the dark there come _b.u.mpity b.u.mp_ all down the stairs, and I shruck and shruck again, and ran for my life."

"My!" said cook. "Was it as bad as that? But what was it, my dear?"

"Oh, I don't know, cook. Something dreadfully horrid, and it was dragging a dead body all down the stairs, and knocking the back of the head hard on every step."

"Fancy!" said Martha, with an emphatic sniff. "It's all stuff, and nonsense. No such thing could have happened. It was all because you went up in the dark."

From feeling startled, and in dread of his secret being known, a rapid change came over Waller; half-suspecting what must have occurred, and finding it covered by the girl's superst.i.tious notions, added to which there were the feathers, the sneezes, and the cook's blessings upon his Majesty King George the Third, the boy's risible faculties were so bestirred that he burst into a roar of laughter.

The effect was almost magical. Bella, who had been lying stretched out upon her back, tapping the floor with her heels occasionally in her paroxysms, suddenly started bolt upright, to exclaim in an indignant voice--

"Yes, it's all very fine for you to laugh, Master Waller!"

"Well, who wouldn't laugh at such nonsense?" said the boy.

"But it isn't nonsense, nor it isn't stuff, cook. You may laugh, sir, but there's something walks up and down there in the dead of the night, and I heard it only last night, too, and told cook."

Martha Gusset slowly bent her head by way of acquiescence, and made as if to throw the goose-wing, with which she had been fanning herself, behind the fire, but altered her mind, and put it on the chimneypiece with the bright bra.s.s candlesticks.

"Up and down where?" asked Waller.

"Oh, I don't know, sir; but it was somewhere in the roof."

"Bah!" cried Waller, contemptuously. "And pray what did cook say?" he went on, as he gave a glance at the comfortable-looking dame.

"Said she was a silly goose, my dear," cried the lady of the kitchen, with something like a snort, "and that she mustn't eat so much for supper. I telled her, Master Waller, that she might go up and down the stairs and pa.s.sages in the dead of the night for a hundred years, and she'd never see anything uglier than herself."

"Ah, you wait," said Bella.

"Did you hear or see anything, cook?" said Waller tentatively.

"I always go to bed to sleep, my dear."

"But I mean this evening, just now?"

"No, my dear. I had had my tea, and was having a comfortable nap over the fire."

"Why, Bella," said Waller, laughing, "you must have heard one of those big bouncing rats that make their nests in the ivy, and come in through the windows in the night."

"Ah, you may sneer at me, Master Waller, but I wouldn't sleep up there alone of a night for crowns of gold. It was just as I said. It was just like one of those horrid things you see in the old books in master's library, dragging dead bodies down the stairs."

"Rat dragging a dead sparrow," said Waller, and he hurried out of the kitchen to make his way out into the hall, where, consequent upon her fright, Bella had not lit the lamp, and then cautiously upstairs to the top attic, where he softly tried the door. He found it still fastened, and uttered a low signal agreed upon between the boys.

This was responded to by the click of the lock, and as Waller entered his fugitive guest went on tiptoe back to the old chair on which he pa.s.sed so much of his time, and there was just faint light enough coming through the window to show that he was softly rubbing his back.

"What's the matter?" said Waller.

"Fell down and hurt myself--all down those stairs. Made a big lump on my head."

"Why, what were you doing?"

"Oh, I waited till it was growing dark, and then I felt that I must get out of this room, if only for a few moments, just to breathe the air in that big pa.s.sage. But the steps were so horribly polished with wax that I went down from top to bottom."

"Oh!" said Waller. "Then I suppose you don't know that you frightened one of our maids."

"Did I? I think I did hear somebody shriek."

"You did; and if you do things like that again, all will be found out.

I shall get into terrible trouble, and you will be caught, and you know what that means."

"Yes," said G.o.dfrey sadly; "I know what that means."

"Well, then, I don't mean to trust you any more," said Waller, "and I shall keep that door locked until I feel it's safe. As soon as I can get you out, we will go off into the woods. I only hope our maid won't talk about it, but I am afraid she will."

There was cause for Waller's fear, for the very next day Bella told the gardener all about her alarm, and that night when he went down to the village shop, Joe Hanson made a small audience of the village people open their eyes widely, stare, and feel, as they told one another, a curious creepy sensation right down their backs.

One of the gardener's audience was Tony Gusset, a man who did not work much at shoe-making or mending, but when he did he thought a great deal, and after this occasion he mused much over what Bella had heard. Then he put that and that together, and thought of a certain reward of a hundred pounds for the taking, dead or alive, of any one of the French spies who had sought refuge in the forest; and that reward haunted the village constable and kept him awake all night.

The next day, too, Bella's, fright was food for reflection, and he mixed up with it the appearance of certain soldiers who had been billeted in the next village.

Tony Gusset thought very slowly, and he reasoned a good deal as well, and it resulted in his asking himself this question: If a man knew where the spies were and showed them to the soldiers, how much would he get, and how much would the soldiers want for their share?

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

WEARY OF HIDING.

"If he sees me going up and down like this he'll tell me I look like a wild beast in a cage, and he'll be quite right; I do. I feel like one.

There are moments when it seems as if I can't bear it. All this dreary wait, wait, wait; all this longing to be out in the fresh air, free. It makes my head throb, and when he comes I could quarrel with him and fight, good chap as he is, so anxious to help me. And then there are the things he brings me. But I can't eat. I must--I will get out, if it's only for an hour's run so as to make myself tired. What must it feel to be a real prisoner, shut up, poor wretch, for years!"

G.o.dfrey Boyne, who looked thin and haggard still, was sitting upon the edge of the truckle bed, elbows on knees, chin upon one hand, while the nails of the other were brought close to his firm teeth, to be nibbled and gnawed down till they were close to the quick, as their owner gazed straight out through the open window at the remains of the glowing sunset, which were paling fast.

"Why hasn't he been to see me all these hours?" he muttered. "He must know how dreary it is up here. He ought to have come. Books," he muttered, as he glanced sharply round, his eyes lighting for a moment upon one that lay open upon a chair; "I couldn't read when it was all bright and light, and even if I could force myself to now, it will soon be dark. It was enough to make me angry and bang one book down, and throw the other in the corner. Hasn't he any brains? To pick out such books as those--escapes from prison. Oh, how I should like to escape from mine and get into the woods! He promised to take me. But, of course, I would come back. I wouldn't have Waller think me ungrateful for the world. I can't help liking him very much; but he'd think it silly if I told him I did. He won't take me out to-night. He'd say again that it wasn't safe while the soldiers were about; and I suppose he's right. Oh, how miserable it is! I daren't even look out of the window for fear of being seen by the servants or the gardener. Well, it will soon be dark, and then I can stare out at the stars. I wonder whether father got away, and what he thinks about me. Let's see, how did that fellow escape?" he added, after an interval, during which dark clouds were sweeping up from the west, and the room seemed to fill with gloom. "Let's see, he made himself a rope."

A rope!

The lad sprang from his seat with the alacrity of a wild animal, for the very mention of a rope gave full play to his imagination, and sent him hurrying to and fro to the full extent of what he looked upon as his cage.

The next moment he was down upon his knees dragging out one of the drawers which contained his young host's treasures. In an instant the great tangle of fine meshes, pike-shaped leads, and strung-together corks was thrust on one side, while, with a faint sigh of exultation, the prisoner drew out the coil of light brown, pleasant-smelling, firmly twisted hemp that had been intended to form the new drag-rope of the net.

"Hah!" panted the lad, as he threw the coil like a great quoit upon the quilt, and then thrust in the drawer.

The next minute he was seated upon the edge of the bed with the rope in his lap, and busily untying the string that, in three places, secured it in shape, for it was brand new, just as it had come from the ship chandler's in Southampton City.

This was soon done, the stiff rope beginning to expand its rings as if it were some live serpent-like creature eager to escape from its bonds.

But G.o.dfrey Boyne paid no heed to this, not even once thinking of coiling it up again and replacing it in the drawer, for, as he thought hard, breathed hard, and felt his spirits expanding like the rope at the thoughts of being free, he saw in imagination the deep dark forest glades, felt the mossy, springy turf beneath his feet, and gave way to that strange half-wild excitement which comes at times upon a boy, and sets him bounding off like some wild creature of the plains, to run, and run, and run onward for no reason at all, until he is forced to stop for want of breath.

"Oh, yes," he muttered, "I can fasten it to that beam, slide down, have my run, and get back again without Waller knowing; and I will. No one shall see me. I'll take care of that."