Boy Woodburn Part 68

He lit his pipe, settled himself, and began to brood.

The girl was still there--he could tell by the sound; and still at the window.

A vague curiosity possessed him as to what attracted her. Then she crossed the floor with that determined step of hers, and went along the loft, the planks betraying her.

He heard her swift feet on the ladder, and coming down the gangway toward the saddle-room.

In another moment she stood before him. A woolly cap was on her head, and a long m.u.f.fler flung about her throat. It was clear that she was going out. He noticed with surprise that her race-gla.s.ses were slung over her shoulders.

"I came for the electric torch," she remarked.

He rose and pocketed it.

"Right," he said. "Whither away?"

"I don't want you," she answered.

"I'm coming along, though."

"You can't," coldly.

"Why not?"

"I'm going spying."

"Good," he answered cheerfully.

She led out into the night. He followed her.

In the yard she paused again.

"And spying's only for people like me," she continued daintily. "It's not work for the gentry."

They were walking across the Paddock Close now under dim heavens toward the light in the cottage across the way.

"I suppose not," he answered imperturbably. "I'm glad I'm not one."

"Oh, but you are," with quiet insistence. "Your father could have been a peer. You've told us about it many a time."

Jim Silver was roused. He surged up alongside the girl in the night, and pinched her arm above the elbow.

"Now look here, little woman!" he said.

She released her arm.

"Not so loud," she ordered. "And don't creak so."

They walked delicately in the darkness, the light guiding them, till they came to the ragged hedge at the foot of a long strip of cottage garden.

The night was very warm, the blinds up, the windows wide.

Joses, in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, was busy within working at something.

The girl watched awhile through her gla.s.ses and then withdrew quietly.

"He's whittling at wooden pegs," she whispered, keen as a knife.

"Obviously."

"What was that coil on the table?"

"Wire."

"And the thing beside it?"

"Mallet."

She glanced up at him in the dusk.

"You're short," she said.

The stables showed before them, long and black against the sky.

They were nearly off the gra.s.s. In another moment their feet would take the cobbles with a noise.

The girl paused and put her hand on her companion's arm.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

The resistance died out of him at once. He stood breathing deeply at her side.

She lifted her face to his.

"Mr. Silver!"

"Sweetheart!"

He loomed above her like a great shadow; and she felt his love beating all about her as with wings.

"Bend your head!"

His face drew down to hers in the dusk.

Then his arms stole about her lithe body; and his laughter was in her ear soft as the cooing of a dove.

"Don't kiss me," she said.

"You deserve it," he replied.