or chap felt so bad and pulled out the pistol. What did he say his
name was? Boyne? Let's see--Battle of the Boyne--where was that? Oh,
I know--King James, and he was a Stuart. Nonsense! That couldn't have
had anything to do with his name. Let's see; I had better wait till it
gets dusk, and then--oh, I'll risk it. I'll smuggle him up to the house
and upstairs. But what about Joe Hanson? Mustn't run against him.
He's always pottering about outside the house towards evening, just as
if he thought I wanted to go down the garden and help myself to apples
and pears. Like his impudence, with his `my garden' and `my fruit,' and
all the rest of it; and father said that I was to take what I liked, and
that he should be proud to leave it to my discretion. It will come to a
row one of these days, for I shall hit out at Master Joe, and then he
will go and complain. Bother Joe Hanson! I want to think about that
poor chap lying out there amongst the bracken. What a miserable,
haggard scarecrow he did look, just like some poor beggarly tramp. But
one could feel that he was a gentleman as soon as he began to speak.
There; best way will be to take him boldly up to the front door and
right up the stairs, and chance it. One never tries to play the sneak
and get anywhere unseen without running bang up against somebody."

These and similar thoughts so took up the boy's attention that it was
like a surprise to him when, close upon sunset, and when the shadows
were deepening in the forest, he found himself close to the spot where
he had left the fugitive; and there he stopped short, listening and
then, feeling that he must not seem to be peering about, he took out his
knife, cut down a nice straight rod of hazel, and began to whittle and
trim it, apparently intent upon his task, but with his ears twitching
and his lowered eyes peering to right and left in every direction, as he
seemed to be unconsciously changing his position.

"Wish I were as clever as Bunny Wrigg," he muttered. "He's just like a
fox for hiding, throwing anyone off the scent. He'd have got here
without anybody seeing him, while, for aught I know, I may have been
watched all the time--by soldiers, perhaps. That must have been some of
them I heard shouting. Oh, it is so queer," he muttered passionately,
as he hacked off the twigs of the stout sapling. "Only this morning I
was as happy as I could be, and now my head's all of a buzz with worry.
Wish I'd gon