In the King's Name Part 15

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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.ter."

"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 b.u.t.ter; 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."