The Stolen Lake Read Online Free PDF Page B

Captain—I do
urge
you to try the pepper pot."
    "Yes, yes, very well," replied Captain Hughes, not at all interested in pepper-pot stew. "Now, I shall be obliged, Mr. Brandywinde, if you can arrange for beds in Tenby for my party tomorrow night—since we must board the riverboat so early. Unless you can accommodate me and my men in your residence?"
    "
Quite
out of the question," said the agent hastily. "Only two bedrooms—one for me and m'dear wife, one for our little angel. No, no, sir; rooms shall be bespoken for you at—
hie
—The White Hart. Fair tap there, but don't trust the gin. But, Captain, you never informed me, you never gave me to understand that you had a young female person—a child—among your crew. I was not apprised of this!"
    "Why in the world should you be?" snapped the captain. "It is of very little import! And she is not a member of my crew—good heavens, I should hope not, indeed!—merely a—a supercargo, a kind of passenger whom I am escorting back to England. And I intend taking her to wait on Queen Ginevra; but she will require more suitable apparel." The captain glanced with disfavor at Dido's jacket and trousers. "Is there," he asked Mr. Brandywinde, "a dressmaker in Tenby—or—or a milliner, haberdasher, needlewoman, who could supply miss there with an outfit to wear at court?"
    If Mr. Brandywinde could have become more flabbergasted, this announcement, it seemed, must have rendered him so. He gaped at Captain Hughes, feebly flapped his hands up and down, opened and shut his mouth several times, before at length replying, "You intend taking miss to visit the queen? Indeed! And you require some apparel—?"
    "Petticoats! A gown! A sash! What about your good lady—Mrs. Brandywinde—perhaps she might know the name of some sempstress?"
    "Oh ... ah ... really I am not ... that is to say
she
does not ... or at least—"
    "Perhaps I and young miss could wait on your good lady at your house, sir," cut in the captain, as the agent's replies did not seem to be tending in any useful direction. "We will bestow our luggage at the inn, tomorrow, leave my first lieutenant to make arrangements for our trip upriver, and then call at your house—
if,
" he added with some irony, "if this will suit your convenience, Mr. Brandywinde?"
    Mr. Brandywinde almost threw himself into another paroxysm in his efforts to assure the captain as to his zeal to be of use. There would not be the least difficulty in the world about finding some suitable person—"
suitable,
ha, ha, for she will supply the young lady with a
suit,
" he concluded, with a burst of almost hysterical merriment. "And I wish you good night, dear friend—dear friend; would that such evenings might never, never end!"
    So saying, he bounded over the rail with such agility that, had there not been a coxswain waiting to receive him in the boat, his evening would most probably have ended in the jaws of a shark.
    Captain Hughes went forward to the quarterdeck. From the irritable haste of his steps as he paced to and fro, the state of his mind could be guessed at.
    Dido availed herself of this chance to restore the telescope to its place on the captain's desk.

    Next morning Dido was up soon after dawn, roused by the fresh scent of trees and grass from the land, and the shrill cries of seagulls, which sounded like a great many tin spoons being scraped on a large number of china plates.
    Hastily she tumbled her small handful of belongings together and stuffed them into a canvas bag. This done, she went hopefully on deck and stared at the land; she could not borrow the captain's spyglass now, for he was in his cabin writing a report.
    "What time does we get to go on shore?" she asked Mr. Holystone when she went below for her breakfast.
    He had his absentminded expression; he looked as if his mind were a hundred miles off, almost out of reach. But at Dido's question he sighed, pulling his mind back into place, and handed her a mug of hot coffee with