"Nevertheless," I urged, "they can be preparing breakfast for you, up at the house, while you and your friends are making ready to come ashore."
"We have broken our fast," he answered; "and we are quite ready, if you will be so good as to guide us."
He stepped to the hatchways and called down, announcing simply that the voyage was ended: and in the dusk there I saw monk after monk upheave himself from the straw and come clambering up the ladder; tall monks and short, old monks and young and middle-aged, lean monks and thickset—but the most of them cadaverous, and all of them yellow with sea-sickness; twenty-eight monks, all barefoot, all tolerably dirty, and all blinking in the fresh sunshine. When they were gathered, at a sign from one of them—by dress not distinguishable from his fellows—all knelt and gave silent thanks for the voyage accomplished.
I could see that Billy Priske was frightened: for, arising, they rolled their eyes about them like wild animals turned loose in an unfamiliar country, and the whites of their eyes were yellow (so to speak) with seafaring, and their pupils glassy with fever and from the sea's glare. But the monk their spokesman touched my arm and motioned me to lead; and, when I obeyed, one by one the whole troop fell into line and followed at his heels.
Thus we went—I leading, with him and the rest in single file after me—up by the footpath through the woods, and forth into sunshine again upon the green dewy bracken of the deer-park. Here my companion spoke for the first time since disembarking.
"Your father, sir," said he, looking about him and seeming to sniff the morning air, "must be a very rich signor."
"On the contrary," I answered, "I have some reason to believe him a poor man."
He stared down for a moment at his bare feet, and the skirts of his gown wet to the knees with the grasses.
"Ah? Well, it will make no difference," he said; and we resumed our way.
As we climbed the last slope under the terraces of the house, I caught sight of my father leaning by a balustrade high above us, at the head of a double flight of broad stone steps, and splicing the top joint of a trout-rod he had broken the day before. He must have caught sight of us almost at the moment when we emerged from the woods.