“Oh! Here a mess!”
Even my father could not help laughing as he looked at the boy.
But there was nothing humorous in the scene to Pomp, who looked up at my father with his brow knit, and continued—
“Place all gone—wash away, and can’t find my tick.”
“The hut washed away?” asked my father.
“Iss; all agone.”
“Never mind! We must build another. Well, Morgan, can you find anything to eat?”
For Morgan had just waded out of the house again with a basket in his hand, and he hastened to open it and produce a couple of roast fowls and a couple of loaves of bread, the latter all swollen up into a great sop, while the former were covered with a thin coating of mud.
“Quick!” said my father, seizing one of the fowls and cutting it in two; “get a rope from the shed, and the little ladder. Take this to your wife at once. No; stop a minute. Here, you go, George; there is some wine in the cupboard.”
I went splashing through the door, and fetched the bottle, for I knew exactly where it stood; and on my return this was given to Morgan, who was sent at once to the tree, while we four stood there in the water eating the remains of the fowls ravenously, both Hannibal and Pomp evidently enjoying the well-soaked bread, which was not bad to one so hungry as I, after I had cut away the muddy outside.