The boyish instinct of 'hide and seek' took possession of Cluffe, and he glided forth from the precincts of the Brass Castle upon the high road, just as the little hall-door was pushed open, and he heard the harsh tones of Dangerfield challenging the gooseberry bushes and hollyhocks, and thrashing the evergreens with his cane.
Cluffe hied straight to his lodgings, and ordered a sack posset. Worthy Mrs. Mason eyed him in silent consternation, drenched and dishevelled, wild, and discharging water from every part of his clothing and decorations, as he presented himself without a hat, before her dim dipt candle in the hall.
'I'll take that—that vessel, if you please, Sir, that's hanging about your neck,' said the mild and affrighted lady, meaning Puddock's guitar, through the circular orifice of which, under the chords, the water with which it was filled occasionally splashed.
'Oh—eh?—the instrument?—confound it!' and rather sheepishly he got the gray red and gold ribbon over his dripping head, and placing it in her hand without explanation, he said—'A warming-pan as quickly as may be, I beg, Mrs. Mason—and the posset, I do earnestly request. You see—I—I've been nearly drowned—and—and I can't answer for consequences if there be one minute's delay.
And up he went streaming, with Mrs. Mason's candle, to his bed-room, and dragged off his clinging garments, and dried his fat body, like a man coming out of a bath, and roared for hot water for his feet, and bellowed for the posset and warming-pan, and rolled into his bed, and kept the whole house in motion.
And so soon as he had swallowed his cordial, and toasted his sheets, and with the aid of his man rolled himself in a great blanket, and clapped his feet in a tub of hot water, and tumbled back again into his bed, he bethought him of Puddock, and ordered his man to take his compliments to Captain Burgh and Lieutenant Lillyman, the tenants of the nearest lodging-house, and to request either to come to him forthwith on a matter of life or death.
Lillyman was at home, and came.
'Puddock's drowned, my dear Lillyman, and I'm little better. The ferry boat broke away with us. Do go down to the adjutant—they ought to raise the salmon nets—I'm very ill myself—very ill, indeed—else I'd have assisted; but you know me, Lillyman. Poor Puddock—'tis a sad business—but lose no time.'
'And can't he swim?' asked Lillyman, aghast.
'Swim?—ay, like a stone, poor fellow! If he had only thrown himself out, and held by me, hang it, I'd have brought him to shore; but poor Puddock, he lost his head. And I—you see me here—don't forget to tell them the condition you found me in, and—and—now don't lose a moment.'