But there was not any spinach in the village, so he had to fall back on eggs and bacon. Mrs. Beale cooked it, and when he had fallen back on it she washed up and went home. And we were left. We could hear the gentleman singing to himself, something about woulding he was a bird that he might fly to thee.
Then we got the lanterns that you take when you go "up street" on a dark night, and we crept over to the Mill. It was much darker than we expected.
We decided to keep our clothes on, partly for warmness and partly in case of any sudden alarm or the fishermen wanting their nets in the middle of the night, which sometimes happens if the tide is favourable.
We let the girls keep the lantern, and we went up with a bit of candle Dicky had saved, and tried to get comfortable among the millstones and machinery, but it was not easy, and Oswald, for one, was not sorry when he heard the voice of Dora calling in trembling tones from the floor below.
"Oswald! Dicky!" said the voice, "I wish one of you would come down a sec."
Oswald flew to the assistance of his distressed sister.
"It's only that we're a little bit uncomfortable," she whispered. "I didn't want to yell it out because of Noël and H.O. I don't want to frighten them, but I can't help feeling that if anything popped out of the dark at us I should die. Can't you all come down here? The nets are quite comfortable, and I do wish you would."
Alice said she was not frightened, but suppose there were rats, which are said to infest old buildings, especially mills?
So we consented to come down, and we told Noël and H.O. to come down because it was more comfy, and it is easier to settle yourself for the night among fishing-nets than among machinery. There was a rustling now and then among the heap of broken chairs and jack-planes and baskets and spades and hoes and bits of the spars of ships at the far end of our sleeping apartment, but Dicky and Oswald resolutely said it was the wind or else jackdaws making their nests, though, of course, they knew this is not done at night.
Sleeping in a mill was not nearly the fun we had thought it would be—somehow. For one thing, it was horrid not having a pillow, and the fishing-nets were so stiff you could not bunch them up properly to make one. And unless you have been born and bred a Red Indian you do not know how to manage your blanket so as to make it keep out the draughts. And when we had put out the light Oswald more than once felt as though earwigs and spiders were walking on his face in the dark, but when we struck a match there was nothing there.