Their comments were cut short by the breakfast-bell; at the same time the hurricane again burst forth:
“Hallo! lads—boys! Youngsters! Are you up?—ah! here you are. Good-morning, and as tidy as two pins. That’s the way to get along in life. Come now, sit down. Where’s Martha? Oh! here we are. Sit beside me, little one.”
The hurricane suddenly fell to a gentle breeze, while part of a chapter of the Bible and a short prayer were read. Then it burst forth again with redoubled fury, checked only now and then by the unavoidable stuffing of the vent-hole.
“You’ve slept well, dears, I hope?” said Mrs Merryboy, helping each of our waifs to a splendid fried fish.
Sitting there, partially awe-stricken by the novelty of their surroundings, they admitted that they had slept well.
“Get ready for work then,” said Mr Merryboy, through a rather large mouthful. “No time to lose. Eat—eat well—for there’s lots to do. No idlers on Brankly Farm, I can tell you. And we don’t let young folk lie abed till breakfast-time every day. We let you rest this morning, Bob and Tim, just by way of an extra refresher before beginning. Here, tuck into the bread and butter, little man, it’ll make you grow. More tea, Susy,” (to his wife). “Why, mother, you’re eating nothing—nothing at all. I declare you’ll come to live on air at last.”
The old lady smiled benignly, as though rather tickled with that joke, and was understood by the boys to protest that she had eaten more than enough, though her squeak had not yet become intelligible to them.
“If you do take to living on air, mother,” said her daughter-in-law, “we shall have to boil it up with a bit of beef and butter to make it strong.”
Mrs Merryboy, senior, smiled again at this, though she had not heard a word of it. Obviously she made no pretence of hearing, but took it as good on credit, for she immediately turned to her son, put her hand to her right ear, and asked what Susy said.
In thunderous tones the joke was repeated, and the old lady almost went into fits over it, insomuch that Bob and Tim regarded her with a spice of anxiety mingled with their amusement, while little Martha looked at her in solemn wonder.