When he woke up he was all fun and talk again, and he pulled out a bag of cakes and buns, and would have us share with him all round. I told him we'd got buns, but he said that didn't matter. "You'll want them all, down on the shore," says he; "and you don't think I can eat all these, do you?" said he. I couldn't help noticing that he ate hardly any, and he kept picking out the nicest cakes and offering them to little Bessie, who I could see took his fancy—she was so pretty and so sweet. But presently, in the very middle of a joke, he stopped and said—"Oh dear!" and dropped his head down on his hands.
"You're not well, sir," I said; and he got up a laugh, and said,—"Oh, only a little;" and then he got whiter and whiter, and couldn't hold himself up. So I just saw to him as if he'd been one of my own. I made him lie on the seat, and asked Jervis for some water, which we'd brought with us in case the children should be thirsty. Then I wetted his forehead, and after a minute he gave a sort of gasp, and opened his eyes, and laughed. If I hadn't kept him back he would have started up.
"Don't move yet, sir, please," I said. "It'll make you bad again."
"So very stupid of me," said he. "Thanks—you're so good. It was only that run, you know."
"I'm afraid you're ill, sir," I said.
"Ill! no!" says he. "I was ill in the winter, but that's ages ago. I'm all right now."
"Maybe the sea 'll make you stronger, sir," says I.
"Oh, I'm all right enough," said he again; and then he shut his eyes, and lay still, which didn't seem of a piece with his words.
"What a kind creature you are!" says he, all of a sudden; and he spoke quite brisk, and a streak of colour had come to his cheeks. "It's too bad, though, to bother you like this. I can get up now;" and he was up before I could stop him; but the streak of colour died away in a moment, and he just dropped back again, and I heard him say— to himself, like—"Oh dear, I do feel bad!"
After that I wouldn't let him stir nor talk, and I kept wetting a clean pocket-handkerchief and laying it on his forehead. He let me do as I liked; and presently he went off sound again, and slept like a top for ever so long. And when he woke up he did look better.