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"Comin', old woman comin'! Get a nap, Mr. Vereker, sir; your wet clo'es won't hurt 'ee now I've slep' in wetter many a time in the Peninsula nothin' like rum took 'ot an' plenty on 't sir. Comin, old woman comin'!" and whisking the heavy kettle from the fire, he nodded and hurried up the stair.
He had reached thus far, when his eye, accustomed to the shadows, chancing to meet mine, he uttered a gasp, and stood staring at me with dropped jaw. "Peter!" he stammered at last. "Peter be that you, Peter?" "To be sure it is," said I. "Bean't ye dead, then?" "I never felt more full of life." "But ye slep' in th' 'aunted cottage last night." "Yes." "But but the ghost, Peter?"
Brown, he hastily seized a vase from the mantel-piece and carried it over to the packing case, where he appeared suddenly to be working against time. Mr. Johnson followed his example. Mrs. Brown's eyes fell upon Mr. Jones and she gasped. "Whatever " she began. "'E's not very well 'm," explained Mr. Blake obsequiously. "'E'll be orl roight when 'e's slep' it orf.
An' so I jes' camped down under it, on the floor, an' then I slep' pretty well. In the mornin', when they came in, they asked me ef I hadn't been asleep; an' I said, 'Yes, I never slep' better. An' they said, 'Why, you haven't been in the bed! An' says I, 'Laws, you didn't think o' such a thing as my sleepin' in dat 'ar' BED, did you? I never heerd o' such a thing in my life.
An' when you've cracked 'em, an' you feel like it, mind, I don't ask you to you can come along and you'll find this shack still standin'. That, too, is up to you. Meanwhiles, Joe Bloc'll slep right here. Guess you'll be startin' out crackin' nuts to-morrow morning. There's just one thing I'd like to say before partin', Jim," he added, his frigidity thawing slightly.
"Wal, takin' the flip so right the last thing afore goin' to bed, she went right off to sleep as sound as a nut, and slep' on till somewhere about mornin', when she said somethin' waked her broad awake in a minute.
"As long as I was tethered to the stake or bush or whatever it was I reckoned I was all right, an' so I slep' on without feelin' a bit alarmed, knowin' that I wouldn't drift no more an' in the mornin' I could go on an' reach the shore.
Bob lay between me an' the purser that night, an' we slep' on all right till it was getting pretty late, though there was two or three snorers that got their noses close to the deck an' kep' up a pretty fair imitation of a brass band.
"And was that all?" "No, sir; for I heered the skipper say, `Anyone been in the cabin? And when no one spoke he began to cuss 'em for a set o' idgits, and they all went below with the lanthorn, and come up again along o' you. My word, Mr Vandean, sir, how you must have slep'!" "Oh, Tom Fillot!" cried Mark again. "Yes, and it is `Oh, Tom Fillot, sir," groaned the poor fellow.
Ah, but I've lived easy in the meantime, never denied myself o' nothing heart desires, and slep' soft and ate dainty all my days but when at sea. And how did I begin? Before the mast, like you!" "Well," said the other, "but all the other money's gone now, ain't it? You daren't show face in Bristol after this." "Why, where might you suppose it was?" asked Silver derisively.
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