“Oh, it ar’n’t no use for you to talk. I know all about it, and the soldiers coming to sarch and then going away because they couldn’t find nothing, when you had got him hid away all the time.”
“Oh, Bunny!” cried Waller huskily.
“That’s me. I tell you I know, so it’s no use to tell no taradiddlums about it. I see you taking him out for a walk last night to stretch his legs.”
Waller’s eyes fixed in a stare, and his lips parted as he breathed harder than usual.
“You see, I’m about arter dark when other folks goes to sleep. I come and had a look at him t’other night when you thought everybody was a-bed.”
“You coward!” said Waller, in a hoarse whisper, and his hands opened and shut as he felt ready to spring at the man’s throat.
“That I warn’t. Man ar’n’t no coward who swarms up that there ivy, which as like as not will break away, being as brittle as carrots.”
“You came to look in and spy?” half whispered Waller.
“That I didn’t. I ar’n’t the spy; it’s ’im. I swarmed up the ivy to see if that there young ullet was fit to take. But it warn’t. But I seed you’d got a light up there, so I went along sidewise, till I could look in. There was you two, laughing and talking together in whispers, and after a bit you jumps up and come and opened the window.”
“Ah!” gasped Waller. “But you weren’t there?”