There followed a sound of sobbing—of footsteps unsteadily receding; and thereafter a weary peace was vouchsafed the traveller, and he dreamed that he was put to bake in the selfsame oven that had provided his supper.
“That is a fine economy,” he heard the cook say—“to roast the rooster!”
The words troubled him excessively. He thought them instinct with a dreadful humour—too diabolically witty to admit of repartee; and so, lapped in despondency, oblivion overtook him.
CHAPTER IV.
Writhing, as it were, from the edges to a central core of heat, Ned woke to find himself wriggling like an eel in a bath of dripping. He sat up in his dingy cupboard, and feeling and seeing a slant of sunlight blazing through its curtains, plunged for the open and breathed out a fainting sigh of relief.
Shrill murmur of voices from a distance came to him; but the kitchen, stalely redolent of wash-houses, was deserted of all save himself.
A pudding-basin on a magnified milking-stool—presumably a washhand-stand—was placed in a corner; and thereat he fretted out an ablution that was a mere aggravation of drought. Then he dressed himself with a sort of fierce and defiant daring, rather hoping to be taken to task for some intolerable solecism in his rendering of local customs.
He was disappointed. The solemn girl came into the kitchen when he was but half-way through his toilet, and, without exhibiting the least interest in his condition, set to preparing and serving his breakfast.
By-and-by he seated himself at the table.
“I am sorry to have kept you out of the room,” he said, with superfluous sarcasm.