Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/80

 "O Elzevir, save me, save me; I am not come to spy."

But he, with a kind look on his face, put his hand on my shoulder, and pushed me gently back, saying,—

"Lie still, lad—there is none here will hurt thee—and drink this."

He held out to me a bowl of steaming broth, that filled the room with a savour sweeter ten thousand times to me than every rose and lily of the world, yet would not let me drink it at a gulp, but made me sip it with a spoon like any baby. Thus while I drank he told me where I was—namely, in an attic at the Why Not—but would not say more then, bidding me get to sleep again, and I should know all afterwards. And so it was ten days or more before youth and health had their way, and I was strong again; and all that time Elzevir Block sat by my bed, and nursed me tenderly as a woman. So piece by piece I learned the story of how they found me.

'Twas Mr. Glennie who first moved to seek me; for when the second day came that I was not at school he thought that I was ill, and went to my aunt's to ask how I did, as was his wont when any ailed. But Aunt Jane answered him stiffly that she could not say how I did.

"For," says she, "he is run off I know not where, but as he makes his bed, must he lie on't; and if he run away for his pleasure, may stay away for mine. I have been pestered with this lot too long, and only bore with him for poor sister Martha's sake; but 'tis after his father that the graceless lad takes, and thus rewards me."