Ere long he passed from the meditative to the blinking stage. Then he turned his eyes on the sleepers, smiled meekly once or twice and nodded to them—quite inadvertently! After that he stretched his bulky frame beside them, and resigned himself to repose.
Now, it is probable that we should have had nothing more to record in reference to that first night in Newfoundland if Captain Trench had been in the habit of taking his rest like ordinary mortals, but such was not his habit. He bounced in his sleep! Why he did so no one could ever find out. He himself denied the “soft impeachment,” and, in his waking moments, was wont to express disbelief as well as profound ignorance in regard to the subject. Several broken beds, however, had, in the course of his career, testified against him; but, like the man who blamed “the salmon,” not “the whisky,” for his headaches, Trench blamed “the beds,” not “the bouncing,” for his misfortunes.
One might have counted him safe with the solid earth of Newfoundland for his bed, but danger often lurks where least expected. Oliver Trench was not an architect either by nature or training. His bower had been erected on several false principles. The bouncing of a big man inside was too much for its infirm constitution. Its weak points were discovered by the captain. A bounce into one of its salient supports proved fatal, and the structure finally collapsed, burying its family in a compost of earth and herbage.
With a roar that would have done credit to a native walrus, the captain struggled to free himself, under the impression that a band of savages had attacked them. All three quickly threw off the comparatively light material that covered them, and stood in warlike attitudes for a few seconds, glancing around for foes who did not exist! Then the roar of alarm was transformed into shouts of laughter, but these were quickly checked by a real foe who crept up insidiously and leaped on them unexpectedly. The half-extinguished fire, having been replenished by the falling structure—much of which was dry and inflammable—caught on the roof and flashed down into the interior.
“Save the pork, lad!” shouted the captain, as he sprang out of the kindling mass.
“Ay, ay, father,” replied the son.
Paul meanwhile grasped the half-finished bows and arrows in his arms, and thus their little all was rescued from the flames. Of course, the bower was utterly consumed, but that caused them little grief. Having extinguished the flames, they all lay down to finish off the night under a neighbouring tree, and even its architect became so oblivious of what had occurred that he employed the remainder of his slumbering hours in dreaming of the home in old England, and of that dear mother whose last letter was still carefully guarded in the pocket of the coat that covered his ardent little bosom.