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In the King's Name: The Cruise of the "Kestrel", a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 13. Breakfast Under Difficulties |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTEEN. BREAKFAST UNDER DIFFICULTIES "Well, this beats everything I've had to do with," said Hilary, as the hours glided by, and he began to suffer acutely. Visions of delicious country breakfasts, for which he had longed, had now given place to the humblest of desires, for he felt as if he would have given anything for the most mouldy, weevilly biscuit that ever came out of a dirty bag in a purser's locker. He had fasted before now, but never to such an extent as this, and he sat upon his straw heap at last, chewing pieces to try and relieve his pain. He had worked at the iron bars for a time, but had now given it up, finding that he would be knifeless long before he could loosen a single bar; besides, that gnawing hunger mastered everything else, and in place of the active the passive state had set in: with a feeling of obstinate annoyance against his captors he had determined to sit still and starve. The probabilities are that Hilary's obstinate determination would have lasted about an hour; but he was not called upon to carry it out, for just about noon, as he guessed, he fancied he heard a voice, and jumping up he ran to the window and listened. Yes, there was no mistake about it. Some one was singing, and it was in sweet girlish tones. "Ahoy! I say there!" shouted Hilary at the invisible singer, who seemed to be right away on the other side of the garden; and the singing stopped on the instant. "Is any one there?" There was not a sound now, and he was about to cry out once more when he caught a glimpse of a lady's dress, and a little slight figure came cautiously through the trees, looking wonderingly about. "Hurrah!" shouted Hilary, thrusting out his arm and waving his hand, "Addy! Addy! Here!" The figure came closer, showing the pleasant face and bright wondering eyes of Sir Henry Norland's daughter, who came timidly on towards the building where Hilary was confined. "Don't you know me, Addy?" he cried. "Hilary! you here?" "Yes, for the present; and I've been kicking and shouting for hours. Am I to be starved to death?" "Oh, Hilary!" she cried. "Well, it seems like it. I haven't had a morsel since yesterday morning. Get me something, there's a dear girl--bread, meat, tea, coffee, anything, if it's only oats or barley." "Wait a minute," cried the girl, turning to go. "You mustn't be longer, or I shall be dead," shouted Hilary as she ran off; and then, dropping from the window, the young fellow executed a figure out of the dance of delight invented for such occasions by Dame Nature to aid young people in getting rid of their exuberance, stopped short, pulled out a pocket-comb, and carefully touched up his hair, relieving it from a number of scraps of straw and chaff in the process. "A nice Tom o' Bedlam I must have looked," he said to himself. "No wonder she didn't know me." "Hil! Hil!" "Ahoy!" he shouted, scrambling up to the window and slipping down again, to try the next time more carefully and on regaining the window-sill there was the bright, eager-looking girl beneath, with a jug of milk and a great piece of bread. "This was all I could get now, Hil," she said, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. "All!" he cried. "New bread and new milk! Oh, Addy, it's lovely! There's nothing I like better for breakfast, and our cow on board won't milk and our oven won't bake. Give us hold: I'm ravenous for the feast." Hilary reached one arm down and Adela Norland reached one arm up, but when they had strained to the utmost a good six feet intervened between Hilary's hand and the slice of bread. "Oh, I say, how tantalising!" he cried, giving a shake at the bars. "Make haste, Addy, and do something. Isn't there a ladder?" "No," she said, shaking her head. "I'll get a chair." "Two chairs wouldn't do it," cried Hilary, who, sailor-like, was pretty ready at ideas. "Here, I know. Get a long stick; put the bread and milk down first." She placed the jug on the ground, and was about to run off. "Cover your handkerchief over them first," cried Hilary, "or I can't bear to sit and look at them." "I won't be a minute," cried the girl; and she ran off, leaving the young sailor in the position of that mythical gentleman Tantalus, waiting her return. The minute had reached two when a peculiar grunting noise was heard, and, to Hilary's horror, an exceedingly pendulous, narrow-backed pig came snuffing and rooting into sight, turning over stones with its huge pointed snout, investigating clods of earth, pushing aside pieces of wood, and all the while making an ill-used grunting squeaking noise, as if protesting against the long period that had elapsed since it was fed. "Well, of all the ugly, hungry-looking brutes I ever saw," said Hilary, as he gazed down at the pig, "you are about the worst. Why, you are not fit to cut up and salt for a ship's company, which is saying a deal. Umph! indeed! Get out you ugly--Oh, murder! the brute's coming at my breakfast! Addy, Addy, quick! Yah! Pst! Get out! Ciss! Swine! Co-chon! Boo! Bah-h-h! Oh, if I'd only got something to throw at the wretch! Quick, Addy, quick!" His sufferings were bad enough before, but now they were agonising, for, treating the loud objurgations of the prisoner with the greatest contempt, after raising its snout sidewise and gazing up at him with one little eye full of porcine wisdom, and flapping one of its ears the while, the pig came to the conclusion that Hilary could only throw words at it such as would not injure its pachydermatous hide, and then with a contemptuous grunt it came on. Nearer and nearer to the breakfast came the pig, twiddling its miserable little tail about, investigating here and turning over there; and more frantic grew the prisoner. He abused that unfortunate pig with every sentence, phrase, and term he could remember or invent, but the animal paid not the slightest heed. "Au, you thick-skinned beast," he cried; "if I were only down there with a stick!" But he was not down there with a stick, and the pig evidently knew, though as yet he did not know of the breakfast lying on the ground so invitingly close, or it would have disappeared at once. Still, there was no doubt that before many minutes had passed it would be gone if Adela did not return, and at last Hilary pulled off a shoe, and as the animal came now in a straight line for the bread, he took careful aim and hit the intruder on the nose. The pig uttered an angry squeal, and jumped back; but as the shoe lay motionless, it concluded that it was probably something thrown it to eat, and in this belief it approached the foot-guard, turned it over, thrust its nose right inside, and lifted it up, flung it off its snout, and proceeded to taste the leather, when, to Hilary's horror, the bread met the ugly little pink eyes. The pig uttered a squeal of pleasure, and dropped the shoe. Hilary uttered a yell of horror, and threw the fellow shoe, and the pig made for the bread, just as, armed with a long stick, Adela came round the corner, saw the position, and rushed at the intruder, whom a blow from the stick drove grunting away. "Oh, I am glad you came," cried Hilary. "You were only just in time." "The nasty thing," cried the lady, picking up the bread. "Had he touched it?" "No," said Hilary pointedly; "_she_ had. But pray make haste." "Oh, what fun!" cried Adela, sticking the point of the stick into the bread, and then, with the weight at the end making the wand bend like a fishing-rod, she held it up bobbing and bowing about to Hilary, who caught at it eagerly, and took a most frightful bite out of one side, leaving a model for the arch of a bridge perfectly visible to the young lady. "What lovely bread!" said Hilary, with his mouth full. Another model arch made in the bread. "I was so precious hungry." "I can see you were," cried Adela laughing. "But I say," said Hilary, with his mouth full; "this is just like feeding a wild beast in a cage." "But however did you come to be here?" cried the girl. "Can't talk till I've been fed a little more," replied Hilary. "I say, Addy, dear, how about that milk?" "That's what I was thinking," said the girl; "I can't push that up to you on the stick." "No," said Hilary, munching away. "What are we to do?" "I don't know, Hil." "I do." He took another tremendous bite, which made the two arches into one by the destruction of the model pier, laid the bread down on the window-sill, and was about to leap down, when he remembered something. "I beg your pardon," he said politely; "would you mind picking up my shoes on the end of that stick, and passing them up?" "Oh, Hilary!" "I was obliged to shy them at the pig to save my breakfast. Thank you," he continued, as she laughingly picked up a shoe on the end of the stick and passed it up. "Now the other. Thanks," he added, dropping them inside his prison. "Now I want that milk." As Adela picked up the jug the sailor dropped back after his shoes, put them on, ran to his straw bed, munching away the while, and drew out the cord that had been used to bind his legs. "How useful a bit of line always is!" he muttered as he climbed back to the window-sill, held on with one arm through the bars, and took another tremendous bite from the bread, nodding pleasantly the while at his old friend. "Why, Hil, how hungry you must have been!" she said. "Let me run and get some butter." "How hungry I am, you mean," he said. "Addy, dear, I feel now just like what wolves must feel when they eat little children and old women. I'll never speak disrespectfully of a wolf again. Why, I could have eaten you." "Oh, what nonsense!" "I don't know so much about that," he said; "but never mind about the butter; let me have some of that milk. Look here, tie one end of this cord round the handle of the jug, and then I'll haul it up." He lowered down one end of the cord and watched her carefully, munching busily the while, as she cleverly tied the end to the jug handle, and then held the vessel of milk up so that he should not have so far to haul. "Steady," said Hilary, with his mouth unpleasantly full; and he softly drew the cord tight, but only to find that the want of balance would pull the jug so much on one side that half the milk would be spilled. "That won't do," he said; "and I can't wait for you to tie the cord afresh; besides, I don't think you could do it right. I say, Addy, drink some of it, there's a good girl; it would be a pity to spill any." Adela hesitated a moment, and then placed the jug to her lips, Hilary watching her attentively the while. "Steady," he cried excitedly; "steady! Don't drink it all." "Oh, Hilary," said the girl laughing, "what a greedy boy you are! You're just as bad as you used to be over the cider." "Can't help it," he said. "There, drink a little more. You don't know how bad I am." "Poor fellow!" she said feelingly; and having drunk a little more she again held up the jug, which he drew rapidly to the window, but not without spilling a good deal. "Hah!" he exclaimed as he got hold of the vessel. "Good health." He drank long and with avidity; and then setting down the jug once more, partook of some bread, looking down the while at his little benefactor, and ending by saying: "Why, Addy, what a nice girl you have grown!" "Have I!" she said laughingly. "And what a great big fellow you have grown; and oh, Hilary," she said, with her face becoming serious, "thank you--thank you for being so very, very kind to us the other day." "Yes," he said, "and this is the way you show it. Now I'm better, and I want to know how you came here." "Oh, this is a very old house--a Place they call it--where papa and I have been staying for some time. Poor papa is obliged to be in hiding." "And who lives here?" "Well, Hilary, perhaps I ought not to say," she said sadly. "Tell me, then, how far are we from the sea?" "About eight miles." "Only eight miles? Well, how did I come here?" "I don't know. I want to know." "Am I a prisoner?" "It seems like it." "But where's everybody? I haven't heard a soul about till you came." "They are not up yet," said Adela, glancing over her shoulder. "They have been out all night, Hilary." "Oh, then, I'm in a regular smuggler's den, I suppose. What place is this I am in?" "The old chapel, Hilary. They say it's haunted, and for the moment, when I saw you, I was frightened." "What! are there ghosts here?" said Hilary, glancing inside. "Yes, they say one walks there sometimes." "I only wish he had walked here last night, and left the door open," said Hilary. "But I say, Addy, how funny that we should meet again like this." "Yes, isn't it, Hilary? And yet," said the girl thoughtfully, "it is not funny, but sad, for the days are not so happy now as they were when we played together years ago." "And we've both grown so," said Hilary thoughtfully. "But look here," he exclaimed, as a sudden thought struck him. "I want to see somebody. I'm not going to be made a prisoner here in my own country. I'm not cross with you, Addy, but I must have this set right. Where is Sir Henry?" As he asked the question a distant voice was heard calling the young girl's name, and she turned, ran, and was out of sight in an instant. _ |
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