“Then why did you say he had?”
“I didn’t. I only said I supposed he had, because he’s always skinning something or another. He’s got owls, and stoats, and all sorts of things that he gets in the forest, or that nasty fellow Bunny Wrigg brings for him.”
“Oh!” said the cook. “Because I am not going to sleep upstairs if he’s got live snakes to come crawling out of his room at all times in the night.”
But though guilty of many such acts as the maid charged him with, Waller was not engaged with any taxidermic preparations, for his time during the past two days had been taken up in attendance upon the young fugitive.
For the first day the latter ate nothing, but passed the full twenty-four hours in a feverish sleep. Then he seemed to throw off the fever, and, thanks to his host, who was eager to supply him, gradually transformed himself from the miserable, ragged, famished object into such a specimen of humanity as made Waller smile with satisfaction.
“Why,” he said, “if the soldiers did come they wouldn’t know you again.”
“Again?” replied the lad. “They’ve never seen me.”
“Well, I mean they wouldn’t take you for a—for a—”
“There, say it,” cried the lad sadly, “For a spy.”
“I didn’t mean spy,” said Waller. “I meant fugitive.”