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Updated: May 4, 2025
"Come off!" said the smith, and with a jerk of the elbow he sent the little manufacturer staggering backwards. Before anyone could help him, Thomas Jordan had collided with the flimsy spring-door. It had given way, and let him crash down the half-dozen steps into Fanny's room. There was a second of amazement; then men and girls were running.
A sleek servant in black opened the door with cat-like tread, and admitted him into a dark, warm hall; and on Tom's saying, in a hoarse whisper, as if he was in church, that he had brought a note of importance, and would wait for an answer, the man glided away, and disappeared through a spring-door, which swung to behind him. Tom thought it would have banged, but it didn't.
See! that spring-door has to be opened when it is returned to the cote after it has carried its message home. You see, I trained them, by feeding them in here, to come into this room when they were flown back to me. They always flew directly in if the window was opened, or gave warning of their presence by fluttering about and beating against the panes if the sash was closed.
"I see, I see, the mirror tells me, It is an old plate-cupboard that I see." A second time they went round, and the question, was repeated. "I see, I see, the mirror tells me, The back is turned to me." A third time was the ceremony fulfilled, and the lad answered "I see, I see, the mirror tells me, A spring-door is open to me."
All he knew of house-life he had learnt from her. It was she who showed him the way to rob a trap. First she would sit upon the spring-door and satisfy herself that it was not lightly set, then with flattened body she would steal beneath it, and push, instead of pull, the bait.
Yet for many years he had taken the risk, and worshipped on as his fathers did before him. His prayer finished, he left the place, closing the spring-door behind him, and passed to his office, where he sat till the morning light, first writing a letter to his correspondent at Seville, and then painfully translating it into cipher by aid of a secret key.
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