But all the same Martha Gusset, who was a pleasant, portly dame, went back to her fire to continue her hurried cooking for her young master’s evening meal.
Meanwhile, without a thought of eating or drinking, Waller was still marching up and down the dining-room making up his mind what he should do; and, this made up, he waited impatiently for the maid’s return to finish her preparations, which were concluded by her bearing in a covered dish which evidently contained something hot and steaming, the vapour which escaped from beneath the cover having a very pleasant, savoury odour.
“There, Master Waller,” said the girl good-humouredly. “Now, do make a good tea, there’s a good boy, and you know what cook is; she don’t like to be put out. I know what I should do if I was you.”
“What?” said Waller, rather surlily.
“Go into the kitchen as soon as you have done tea, and tell her that you never had anything nicer than those cakes; and she will be so pleased that she won’t say another word about the pie.”
“Oh, very well,” said Waller, who was making another plan.
“That’s a good boy. Between you and me. Master Waller, Martha’s as nice as nice, but she’s just as proud and stuck up about her cooking as her brother is about being constable. Ring when you have done, please.”
Waller nodded, and lifted up the dish-cover, which the girl took from his hand, and then, nodding pleasantly, hurried out of the room.
The boy’s actions the next minute were rather curious, for he followed to the door, turned the little handle that shot the small bolt into its socket, and then, after a conspirator-like glance at both the windows, he went to the bookcase and took down six or eight books from the lower shelf, to place them on a chair, before he hurried back to the table, caught up a nice hot plate and a fork, and then transferred half a dozen out of the eight nicely browned meat buns from the dish, carried the plate to the opening in the bookshelf, and pushed it as far back as it would go.
Returning to the table, he paid his next attentions to a little pile of hot and buttered bread cakes, a kind of food in which Martha excelled. Taking up a couple of these, one in each hand, he was moving once more towards the bookcase, but turned back directly.