The boy was straining to see him out of sight when a resounding bellow from Becky Boozer let him know that dinner was ready. Hastily shutting the window and running downstairs, Chris could think of only one thing.
"Becky!" he cried, bursting out at the bottom of the stairs, "Who is the blind man that just went by—the hunchback?"
Becky never even turned from the plate she was preparing. "Oh, him? That would be Simon Gosler, one of Claggett Chew's men. How he can be a sailor beats me, but Claggett Chew has hired him for years, plague take him! Now," and she came toward the sunny table with a beaming smile, "eat up, young man, or I shall think my cooking does not please you!"
Chris hurriedly set about proving his appreciation.
CHAPTER 10
he learning of magic was by no means easy. The days went by with Chris's mornings and afternoons spent in Mr. Wicker's study, reading books too heavy for him to lift, learning incantations by heart, and how to blend simple formulae over the fire. He had told his master at once about Simon Gosler, his horde of money and his hiding places for it. Mr. Wicker though interested and attentive, gave Chris the impression that what he had been told was not new to him. At times Chris was allowed to run about the large vegetable garden and climb the orchard trees, but he was told that the moment had not yet come when he could wander at will in early Georgetown.
Chris had tried it once, rebellious and bored at the now familiar ground, but it was as if an invisible wall kept him in the confines of Mr. Wicker's land, a slippery glass wall he could feel but not see, and in which he could discover no chink in which to put his toe to find the height of it. So there was nothing left to do but to work as fast and as well as he could. "There are rumors," Mr. Wicker had told him quietly, too quietly, "that Claggett Chew is preparing his ship, the Venture, for a voyage East. There is much activity about his ship, and he is laying in stores, so I am informed. We must get forward with all haste, for his ship is a fast one—faster than the Mirabelle."