“Let me see,” continued Fred, as he gazed across the lake, “how should I do it? Easily enough. Get thirty or forty men, and take them in the old boat across to the mouth of the passage, ten at a time. What nonsense! March them after dark round to the wilderness, pull away the boughs, drop down, and thread our way right along the old passage into the Hall, surprise every one, and the place would be ours.
“And a nice treacherous thing to do; and I should fail,” he cried joyously, “for Scar will have given me the credit of planning such a thing, and I’ll be bound to say he has blocked the place up with stones.
“No; I couldn’t do that, and if ever we meet again as friends, and Scar tells me he was sure I should attack them there, and that he guarded against it, I’ll kick him for thinking me such a dishonourable traitor.”
Fred sat musing still—wondering what the garrison were doing, and fighting hard to keep the thought of the secret passage out of his mind.
What would his father say if he knew of the secret he was keeping back? and conscience ran him very hard on the score of duty to his country.
“But,” he said at last, “duty to one’s country does not mean being treacherous to one’s old friends. I’m obliged to fight against them; but I’ll fight fairly and openly. I will not, duty to my country or no duty, go crawling through passages to stab them in the dark.”
It was a glorious day, succeeding two during which a western gale had been blowing, drenching the attacking party, and making everything wretched around; and as Fred lose from where he had been seated and walked slowly along by the edge of the lake towards its eastern end, the water, moor, and woodlands looked so lovely that there was a mingled feeling of joy and misery in the lad’s breast.
He thought of the besieged, then of those who were in all probability still at the Manor, from which duty had kept him absent, even his father having refrained from going across, though they had had daily information as to Mistress Forrester’s welfare. Fred thought then of his own position, and all the time he was gazing down into the clear water, where he could see the bar-sided perch sailing slowly about, and the great carp and tench heavily wallowing among the lily stems, and setting the great flat leaves a-quiver as they floated on the surface. Ah, how it all brought back the pleasant old days when he and Scar used to spend so much time about the water-side!
“I wonder whether he can see me now,” he muttered, as he came up to one of the little patches of woodland, and stood gazing across the lake at the ivy and bush-grown bank where the secret passage had its opening.
“No; I don’t suppose Scar would know me at this distance,” he said; and he took half a dozen steps forward, to be stopped short by the rattle of arms and a sharp “Halt!”