“There, that’s right. Sit up, my dear, and keep the blankets round you. They’re only wet at one corner. I did that bringing them in. There, drink that!”
He snatched at the bottle held to him, and drank with avidity till it was drawn away.
“That’ll put some life into you, my dear; it’s milk, and brandy too. Now eat that. It’s only bread and hake, but it was all I could manage now. To-morrow I’ll bring you something better, or I’ll know the reason why.”
Grilled fish still warm, and pleasant homemade bread. It was a feast to the starving man; and he sat there with a couple of blankets sending warmth into his chilled limbs, while the old fishwoman sat and talked after she had placed the lantern upon the sand.
“Let them go on thinking so,” said Harry at last. “Better that I should be dead to every one I know.”
“Now, Master Harry, don’t you talk like that. You don’t know what may happen next. You’re talking in the dark now. When you wake up in the sunshine to-morrow morning you’ll think quite different to this.”
“No,” he said, “I must go right away; but I shall stay in hiding here for a few days first. Will you bring me a little food from time to time, unknown to any one?”
“Why of course I will, dear lad. But why don’t you put on your pea-jacket and weskit? They is dry now.”
Harry shuddered as he glanced at the rough garments the woman was turning over.
“Throw them here on the dry sand,” he said hastily. “I don’t want them now.”