The New Forest Spy

by George Manville Fenn

Then his heart seemed to stand still, and a choking feeling assailed him, for the rope was gone—only for a few moments, for as he roused himself to action, and mastered his feeling of dismay, he awoke to the fact that he was feeling beneath the wrong window. Then a few yards to his right his searching hand came in contact with the firm twisted cord, which he grasped with both hands as high up as he could reach, drew up his legs to get the rope twisted round, and then began to—climb? No—gently swing to and fro. It was a very pleasant motion as he brushed against the shrubs and once bumped up against the sill of one of the lower windows, but it was not what he wanted.

For the first time in his life he was realising that, though it is very easy to slide down a rope, it is quite a gymnastic feat, only to be mastered by long practice, to climb up a cord that is comparatively slight.

“Oh, why didn’t I remember to make a knot at every foot?” thought the lad, as he severely abused himself for his folly and ignorance during the intervals of struggling hard to get, if only a few feet up, towards the window, but toiling in vain and only growing hotter and more exhausted in spite of all.

He rested for a while, and once more tried, rested, and tried again, and at last, utterly fagged out, he gave up in despair.

He was so wearied out that, still holding by the rope, he sank upon his knees amongst the shrubs that dotted the broad bed beneath the windows, and even when his breath was coming easily once more, and the hot burning pain in his chest had subsided, the spirit to make another attempt was wanting, and, with a feeling of despair increasing, he began to plan what he should do till morning—whether he could get round to the back and find an entrance to the stables and pass the night in a loft, so as to try and steal in some time in the morning, and reach the attic unseen.

“But Waller will be going up and finding that I am gone,” he thought. “He will see the rope hanging out of the window, and— Oh, what an idiot I have been! If I had only waited and been patient for another day or two, perhaps—” He stopped short, for he was conscious of what sounded like a deep sigh close at hand, then of a heavy stertorous breathing, and, dimly seen, not a couple of yards away, he made out the shape of a big, heavy, stooping man, passing over the lawn very slowly, and as if looking for him. For that was the only interpretation that he could place upon the man’s movements.

It was not Waller, nor the gardener, for certain; but who it could be, in his excitement, he could not hazard a conjecture. He himself was fugitive and spy, and the only interpretation natural was that this man was hunting for him, and he was lost.

So startled was the boy by the adventure, so exhausted by what he had gone through, that it never occurred to him to make a dash for liberty. He crouched there, literally paralysed, and for the moment he could not believe it true that, due to his silence and position, he was unseen, and the man had passed away into the darkness, and his heavy panting breath had died away. In the reaction came the thought of what he ought to do, and with it the wonder that it had not occurred to him before.

Pausing a few brief moments to make sure that he was quite alone, Godfrey rose from his crouching position, and, with the rope gliding through his hand, he stepped outward on to the lawn at right-angles to the front of the house, to feel the next minute the sharp needles of the big fir-tree brushing his face and making a crickling, crackling noise as the rope, which passed through his hands, rustled among the boughs.

The next minute he had forced his way in close up to the trunk, and, running the rope through his hands, till he got hold of the free end, he fastened it round his waist and then began to climb.