After waiting about a quarter of an hour outside the farm, with his back against one of the roughly piled-up stone walls of the district, Archy began to think it was very dull, and his expectations of a discovery or an adventure grew less and less. All was very quiet at the farm, so quiet that he determined at last to go and peer in at the window to see if the farmer was likely to come out again, because if this were not so he was wasting his time.
“But they are not likely to do anything without him,” he thought.
Advancing cautiously, he entered the garden, and was just going up to the window, when the door was thrown open, and he dropped down behind a bush as the farmer strode out.
“He must see me,” thought Archy. “What a position for an officer to be in!”
“Eh?” exclaimed Shackle, turning sharply round, as if to answer his wife. “Oh yes. Ought to have been here by now.”
This gave the midshipman a moment’s breathing time; and he had drawn himself up behind the bush by the time the farmer had closed the door, the sudden change from darkness to light preventing Shackle from seeing the spy upon his proceedings.
Just as he was passing he stopped short, uttering an ejaculation; and feeling that he was seen, the midshipman was about to leap up, jump over the low wall, and run, when he heard steps.
He lay still, hoping that this might have drawn forth the exclamation, but for the next few moments he was in agony.
Then came relief.
“That you, Ramillies?”