The New Forest Spy Part 18

"Well, of all the impudence! I shan't give you any more, so toddle."

"n.o.body asked you--I say, I know!"

"Know what?"

"About the hundred pounds."

"What hundred pounds?" said Waller, starting.

"What you are going to get for ketching that chap," said the man, with a grin.

"Catching what chap?" cried Waller sharply.

"Ah, you know. Why, I always sleep with my eyes open. It's a hundred pounds for ketching that spy, as they calls him; and as he was caught in my woods I say halves."

"You don't know what you are talking about," cried Waller fiercely, bl.u.s.tering to hide the faint qualm he felt. "Spy! Hundred pounds!

Halves! Here, you had better be off before you get into a row. Your woods, indeed! What next?"

"I d'know, and don't want to. All I know is that they are wild, and as much mine as anybody else's. Now then, what about them halves?"

"Look here, Bunny; what have you got in your head?"

"Hidees, Master Waller. Never you mind what I have got in my head; it's what have you got up in your room where you are always cobbling and tinkering and making things?"

"Bunny!" cried Waller, staggered for the moment out of his a.s.surance.

"Yes; that's me, Master Waller, and I want fifty pound. Lot of money, ar'n't it? And I want money. You are a rich gentleman, and don't, and ought to give me the whole hundred. But I don't want to be grasping, because it's you, and so I says halves."

"But, Bunny--" cried Waller.

"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 hoa.r.s.e 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?"

"I warn't there! Warn't I just? Why, the window sc.r.a.ped over my head and knocked my cap off as I bobbed down. There, it's no use for you to pretend, Master Waller, so just you hand over that there fifty pounds."

Waller was silent for a few moments, and his eyes wandered in all directions save that where the rough-looking woodman stood. At last, after drawing a deep breath, he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:

"Come along this way."

"Wheer to, lad?"

"Out in the woods."

"Ar'n't a-going to try and do for me so as to keep all the hundred pounds yourself, are you, Master Waller?" said the rough fellow, with a grin.

"No, of course not. I want to talk to you."

"That's right, lad. I wouldn't try to do t'other, because you might get hurt, and I shouldn't like to hurt you, Master Waller, because you have been a good friend to me, and I like you, lad, and I'm waiting to see you grow up into being the finest gentleman in these parts. You won't never want to chivvy me out of the woods, I know."

Waller uttered a low hiss, and hurried on in silence till they stood together among the nut stubs overshadowed by the spreading oaks, when he stopped short and faced round.

"You say you know that I shall never chivvy you out of the woods, Bunny; but you know wrong, for I should like to do it now."

"Get out, lad! Not you! Why?"

"For being such a coward and sneak, and coming here to gather blackmail and betray that poor fellow to the gallows, or to be shot."

"What are you talking about, lad? What if he is put away? He's only a spy, come here to do harm to the King."

"That's nothing to do with you," cried Waller.

"Nay, but the money is. Half a hundred pounds is a lot. You needn't make a fuss; you'll get your share. What's he to you? Has he broke his leg, same as I did mine, when I wouldn't go away into the workus, and you used to come and see me and talk to me till it got better?"

"Broken his leg? No!"

"Ho! Thought he had perhaps, because you like doctoring chaps as has broke their legs, as well I know. What is he to you, then, Master Waller?"

"He's my friend, Bunny," cried the boy pa.s.sionately. "One I'd do anything to save from harm; one I like as if he were my brother. And here you come, after all the kindness that I have shown you, and want to do me the greatest harm that man could do."

"That I don't."

"What! Why, you come here threatening to go and betray that poor fellow to the soldiers if I don't give you fifty pounds."

"That I didn't, Master Waller. I want for you and me to go and give him up fair and square, and take the money, before someone else does."

"What!" cried Waller, catching him by the arm. "Somebody else? Does anyone but you know he's there?"

"Like enough, lad," said the man, with a grin.

"But you haven't betrayed him?"

"Not likely, lad. I say to myself, I says, 'If anybody is going to get that money it's Master Waller and me, not old Fatty Gusset, who brought the soldiers up t'other day.'"