“Yes, Master Fred, that looks as if he was at home; but you wouldn’t have laughed if you’d had it.”
“He did it to wake you up, Nat.”
“Oh, I was waken enough, Master Fred; but how’s Brother Samson?”
“Like you, Nat, half asleep,” cried the boy, looking back as he hurried on toward the house, leaving the man staring after him thoughtfully.
“Yes,” he muttered, “Samson is a deal like me. Wonder whether Master Fred ever chucks apples at he?”
Meanwhile the lad addressed as Master Fred made his way along the house front, peering in at first one and then another window, till he reached the great door opening on to the end of the shingled terrace.
Without the slightest hesitation, and behaving like one who was quite at home, he entered the great oak-floored hall, and looked round—not at the groups of weapons and suits of armour that were arranged as trophies about the place, nor yet at the pictures and various interesting objects hung between the stained-glass windows, on the oaken panels surrounded by carving and surmounted by the heads and antlers of deer killed on the adjacent moor.
Fred Forrester had eyes for none of these objects, as he looked here and there, now in the low-ceilinged and carved-oak dining-room, then in the drawing-room, and, lastly, in Sir Godfrey Markham’s library—a gloomy, tree-shaded room, where he thought it possible that his friend and companion might be hiding. But all was still, and there was no one behind the heavy curtains, nor inside the huge black oak cabinet beside the great mullioned window.
“Wonder whether he’s in the stables?” said Fred, half aloud, as he came slowly out of the gloomy room and stood beneath the broad gallery which crossed the end of the hall. “I know. He’s with the dogs,” said the lad, taking a step from out of the shelter of the gallery, and then staggering forward and nearly going down on hands and knees; for at that moment a wool mattress, which had been poised ready on the gallery balustrade, was dropped upon his head, and a peal of laughter echoed from the panelled ceiling as Fred recovered himself, and rushed up the broad staircase to attack his aggressor.
There was a good-tempered wrestling bout on the landing, and then the two lads, Fred Forrester and Sir Godfrey Markham’s son Scarlett, stood panting and recovering their breath.