“Then creep in there under those ferns. Nobody could see you even if he came by, and Bunny Wrigg is the only one likely to be about here. Clever as he is, I don’t suppose he would spy you out. Why, I shouldn’t have seen you if you hadn’t started up as you did. That’s right. I shan’t be long.”
Waller snatched up the two joints of his rod, and the creel which he had thrown down, and started off at a smart trot in and out amongst the great beeches, not traversing the way by which he had come, but striking a bee-line for home.
Chapter Four.
A Raid on the Larder.
Brackendene was the very model of an Elizabethan country house, with clusters of twisted chimneys, and ivy clinging to the red bricks everywhere that it could find a hold.
There was an attractive porch opening out upon the well-kept pleasaunce, but, instead of going straight to it, Waller looked sharply to right and left, saw nobody and heard nothing but a dull, distant thump, thump, and the barking of a dog from somewhere at the back.
The next minute he was through one of the dining-room casements, and crossed into the hall, where he stood listening for a moment or two to the thump, thump, which now sounded nearer.
“That’s Martha at her churn,” he muttered. “How stupid it seems! Anyone would think I was a thief.”