The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

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      Happily, the landlord, coming out with a lantern, and finding us by the chattering of our teeth, was moved by the consideration shown us by Don Sanchez to relax his severity; and so, unlocking the stable door, he bade us get up into the loft, which we did, blessing him as if he had been the best Christian in the world. And then, having buried ourselves in hay, Jack Dawson and I fell to arguing the matter in question, I sticking to my scruples (partly from vanity), and he stoutly holding t’other side; and I, being warmed by my own eloquence, and he not less heated by liquor (having taken best part of the last bowl to his share), we ran it pretty high, so that at one point Jack was for lighting a candle end he had in his pocket and fighting it out like men. But, little by little, we cooled down, and towards morning, each giving way something, we came to the conclusion that we would have Don Sanchez show us the steward, that we might know the truth of his story (which I misdoubted, seeing that it was but a roguish kind of game at best that he would have us take part in), and that if we found all things as he represented them, then we would accept his offer. And also we resolved to be down betimes and let him know our determination before he set out for London, to the end that we might not be left fasting all the day. But herein we miscalculated the potency of liquor and a comfortable bed of hay, for ’twas nine o’clock before either of us winked an eye, and when we got down, we learnt that Don Sanchez had been gone a full hour, and so no prospect of breaking our fast till nightfall.

      Presently comes Moll, all fresh and pink from the house, and falls to exclaiming upon the joy of sleeping betwixt clean sheets in a feather bed, and could speak of nothing else, saying she would give all the world to sleep so well every day of her life.

      “Eh,” whispers her father in my ear, “you see how luxuries do tempt the poor child, and what kind of a bed she is like to lie in if our hopes miscarry.”

      On which, still holding to my scruples, I says to Moll:

      “’Tis easy to say you would give the world, Moll, but I know full well you would give nothing for all the comfort possible that was not your own.”

      “Nay,” says she, crossing her hands on her breast, and casting up her eyes with the look of a saint, “what are all the fruits of the earth to her who cannot take them with an easy conscience? Honesty is dearer to me than the bread of life.”

      Then, as Jack and I are looking at each other ruefully in the face at this dash to our knavish project, she bursts into a merry peal of laughter, like a set of Christmas bells chiming, whereupon we, turning about to find the cause of her merriment, she pulls another demure face, and, slowly lifting her skirt, shows us a white napkin tied about her waist, stuffed with a dozen delicacies she had filched from Don Sanchez’s table in coming down from her room.

      CHAPTER IV.

      Of the several parts that we are appointed to play.

      Finding a sheltered secret corner, we made a very hasty breakfast of these stolen dainties, and since we had not the heart to restore them to our innkeeper, so we had not the face to chide Moll for her larceny, but made light of the business and ate with great content and some mirth.

      A drizzly rain falling and turning the snow into slush, we kept under the shelter of the shed, and this giving us scope for the reflection Don Sanchez had counselled, my compunctions were greatly shaken by the consideration of our present position and the prospect of worse. When I thought of our breakfast that Moll had stolen, and how willingly we would all have eaten a dinner got by the same means, I had to acknowledge that certainly we were all thieves at heart; and this conclusion, together with sitting all day doing nothing in the raw cold, did make the design of Don Sanchez seem much less heinous to me than it appeared the night before, when I was warm and not exceedingly sober, and indeed towards dusk I came to regard it as no bad thing at all.

      About six comes back our Don on a fine horse, and receives our salutations with a cool nod—we standing there of a row, looking our sweetest, like hungry dogs in expectation of a bone. Then in he goes to the house without a word, and now my worst fear was that he had thought better of his offer and would abandon it. So there we hang about the best part of an hour, now thinking the Don would presently send for us, and then growing to despair of everything but to be left in the cold forgotten; but in the end comes Master Landlord to tell us his worship in the Cherry room would see us. So, after the same formalities of cleansing ourselves as the night afore, upstairs we go at the heels of a drawer, carrying a roast pig, which to our senses was more delightful than any bunch of flowers.

      With a gesture of his hands, after saluting us with great dignity, Don Sanchez bade us take our places at the table and with never a word of question as to our decision; but that was scarce necessary, for it needed no subtle observation to perceive that we would accept any conditions to get our share of that roast pig. This supper differed not greatly from the former, save that our Moll was taken with a kind of tickling at the throat which presently attracted our notice.

      “What ails you, Molly, my dear?” asks Jack. “Has a bit of crackling gone down the wrong way?”

      She put it off as if she would have us take no notice of it, but it grew worse and worse towards the end of the meal, and became a most horrid, tearing cough, which she did so natural as to deceive us all and put us in great concern, and especially Don Sanchez, who declared she must have taken a cold by being exposed all day to the damp weather.

      “If I have,” says she, very prettily, after wiping the tears from her eyes upon another fit, “’tis surely a most ungrateful return for the kindness with which you sheltered me last night, Señor.”

      “I shall take better care to shelter you in the future, my poor child,” replies the Don, ringing the bell. Then, the maid coming, he bids her warm a bed and prepare a hot posset against Moll was tucked up in the blankets. “And,” says he, turning to Moll, “you shall not rise till noon, my dear; your breakfast shall be brought to you in your room, where a fire shall be made, and such treatment shown you as if you were my own child.”

      “Oh! what have I done that you should be so gentle to me?” exclaims Moll, smothering another cough. And with that she reaches out her leg under the table and fetches me a kick of the shin, looking all the while as pitiful and innocent as any painted picture. “Would it be well to fetch in a doctor?” says Don Sanchez, when Moll was gone barking upstairs. “The child looks delicate, though she eats with a fairly good appetite.”

      “’Tis nothing serious,” replies Jack, who had doubtless received the same hint from Moll she had given me. “I warrant she will be mended in a day or so, with proper care. ’Tis a kind of family complaint. I am taken that way at times,” and with that he rasps his throat as a hint that he would be none the worse for sleeping a night between sheets.

      This was carrying the matter too far, and I thought it had certainly undone us; for stopping short, with a start, in crossing the room, he turns and looks first at Dawson, then at me, with anything but a pleasant look in his eyes as finding his dignity hurt, to be thus bustled by a mere child. Then his dark eyebrows unbending with the reflection, maybe, that it was so much the better to his purpose that Moll could so act as to deceive him, he seats himself gravely, and replies to Jack:

      “Your family wit may get you a night’s lodging, but I doubt if you will ever merit it so well as your daughter.”

      “Well,” says Jack, with a laugh, “what wit we have amongst us we are resolved to employ in your honour’s service, so that you show us this steward-fellow is a rascal that deserves to be bounced, and we do no great injury to any one else.”

      “Good,” says Don Sanchez. “We will proceed to that without delay. And now, as we have no matter to discuss, and must be afoot early tomorrow, I will ring СКАЧАТЬ