The New Forest Spy

by George Manville Fenn

Waller’s appetite was gone. The girl seemed to have taken it out of the room with her, and the boy thrust his hands into his pockets and sat thinking for some time about his plans, and ended by rising from his hardly touched meal to cross to the bell. But a fresh idea occurred to him, and, going back to the table, he took his untouched cup, carried it carefully to the open window, and emptied it upon a flower-bed; then, returning the cup, he rang the bell, waited till he heard Bella’s step in the hall, and then began to parade in a sort of “sentry go” up and down in front of the partly open bookcase, while the maid, after a glance at the boy’s averted countenance and frowning face, not daring to catch his eye for fear of bursting out into a fresh fit of laughter, began to clear the table.

Neither spoke till the task was pretty well finished, and then the girl looked up at Waller, next at the table, and lastly about the room.

“Well,” she exclaimed, “if I couldn’t declare that I brought two more plates!”

Waller paid no apparent heed to the remark, but continued his “sentry go,” breathing rather hard the while, till Bella left the room, when he uttered a low sigh of relief.

But the boy’s thoughts had not been idle during this time, and as soon as he was free to carry out his plans he opened the door, listened to the murmur of voices in the kitchen, and then ran to the bookcase, took out his supply of provender, had another listen, and then ran with the two plates upstairs, past the main set of bedrooms, and then up the next flight to a room in the front which was devoted to his pursuits.

Here he had books, tools, stuffed birds, fishing-tackle, a wonderfully untidy lot of specimen birds’ nests and their eggs arranged on shelves; in short, in addition to a pallet bedstead and bed that were very rarely used, a most glorious muddle of the odds and ends and collections dear to the heart of a country lad, all of which were under an interdict not to be touched by the brush, broom, or duster of the maids.

Waller’s actions gave the key to his thoughts.

The cereal and carnal cakes were thrust into a closet, and the boy proceeded then to turn down and feel the bed, over which he frowned and seemed in doubt; but the next minute he had rushed out of the room and downstairs to his own chamber, to strip a couple of blankets from the bed, smooth it over again, and make it rougher than it was before, a fact which he grasped and puzzled over for a moment, before exclaiming, “Bother!” and, after listening at the head of the stairs, he rushed up into his work-room with the blankets.

That seemed to him to be all that he could do, till it occurred to him that the room felt hot and stuffy, so he threw open the window, fastening back the casement, and stood gazing out at a great rugged old Scotch fir not many feet away, one apparently of great age, and which cut off a part of the view over the undulating greenery of the forest.

Quite satisfied now, and with a sigh of relief, the boy went out to the landing, carefully locked the door and pocketed the key.