But it was not from cold. It was with perfectly silent mirth, as he said to himself—
“I honestly believe that they were both asleep as soon as their heads touched the ground.”
Then after a pause, during which he had been slowly and watchfully gazing about him in every direction, his thoughts came back to the sleepers at his feet.
“I like that,” he thought, “for it was all real and plucky and true. Not a bit of sham in it. He meant it all, and he meant to go to his father when it was time for me to call him in nearly four hours’ time. But nature’s too strong for him. He won’t wake up, and I shan’t rouse him. It will be the doctor who does that.”
It was the doctor, and directly after—at least, so it seemed to Chris, who opened his eyes to stare at his father, and then at the fire crackling and smoking in a sheltered spot among the nearest bushes and trees.
“Why, it’s to-morrow morning,” cried the boy excitedly.
“Ah, that’s what you ought to have said last night, my boy,” said the doctor, laughing, as he pressed Ned’s side with his toe. “Come, Ned, lad: breakfast.”
Ned sprang up as sharply as if he had been kicked.
“Eh? What?” he cried.—“Oh! We’ve been to sleep.”
“Of course you have,” said the doctor. “You lay down to sleep, didn’t you?”