Left alone, we proceeded to discuss our own meal, slices of the cake-like bread forming our plates, and our pocket-knives doing double duty. Great draughts of hot tea washed down the bacon, and scarcely a word was spoken till Esau sighed, and began to wipe and polish his big new knife.
“Feel better, my lad?” said Gunson, smiling.
“Yes,” said Esau, speaking rather reluctantly. “I am a bit better now.”
“A bit? Why, you are like a new lad. Nothing like a good tea meal out in the wilds, my lad, to put life into one. Why I’ve known days when we’ve been ready to break down, or give up, or go back; then we’ve formed camp, got a bit of fire on the way, boiled the kettle with a pinch of tea in it, and eaten our cold bacon and damper, and been fit to do anything after. So are you two. To-morrow morning you’ll be ready to make your start up the river, and this will be like your first lesson in camping out.”
“Which way are you going, sir?” said Esau, after a long silence, during which we had been sitting gazing at the fire, but not until there had been a general tidy up of our table.
“Nor’-east,” said Gunson, laconically. Then in a very abrupt way, “Now then, you’ve a hard day’s work before you to-morrow, so roll yourselves up in your blankets and go to sleep.”
“Where?” I said. “She has not showed us our bedroom.”
“No, because this is, as the old song says, ‘parlour and kitchen and hall,’ with sleeping accommodation included. There are plenty of fine spreading spruces outside, though, if you prefer a bed there.”
“Oh no,” I said, as I began to realise that our journey now was going to be very rough indeed; and thoroughly appreciating the value of the blanket I had brought, I rolled myself in it, and lay down to think wonderingly of where we should be to-morrow. I knew that I could not go to sleep, but thought it better to obey Gunson in every way while he was with us; and as I lay there, I saw him rise and stand thoughtfully before the fire, while almost directly a sound arose from close by me as if Esau was practising ventriloquism, and wanted to give a good imitation of wood-sawing.
This grew so exasperating at last, that I should have kicked him to wake him up if I had not been prevented by my blanket, which was twisted so tightly round my legs that they would not move.