Chapter Eight.
To the Bush.
For some moments Nic acted involuntarily as he scrambled on his clothes, feeling, as he did, in a confused way that it was his duty to dress, but why and wherefore, he had not the most remote idea.
It was cold and raw, and everything went wrong; and as he could not get himself quite dry, his shirt stuck to him and refused to go on. Those things which ought to have been in one place had got into another; and even when the cold water had thoroughly wakened him he did not get on very well, and felt ill-humoured, stupid, and out of sorts.
“It’s so vexatious starting so soon,” thought Nic, as lie thrust brush, comb, and nightshirt into the bag he had nearly packed over night; and at last he opened the door, just as his father called up the stairs:
“Come, Nic, my boy: they didn’t teach you at school to be quick.”
“Hush! you’ll wake Lady O’Hara,” protested the boy.
“I should be puzzled to,” replied his father shortly. “Come in here.”
“In here” meant the dining-room, where the first person he saw, by the light of the candles standing on the white breakfast-cloth, was their hostess.