Finding they made a serious affair of it (for I saw them whispering together), I was under some apprehension for the consequences of my frolic. Thinks I, if under this disgust they take flight, refusing to hear me, and report that I was about to murder them, or tell any other pernicious story to my father of me, I am absolutely undone, and shall never see Youwarkee more. So I laid down the gun by the fish, and moving slowly towards them, expostulated with them upon their disorder; assuring them that though the object before them might surprise them, it was but a common instrument in my country, which every boy used to take birds with; and protested to them that the gun of itself could do nothing without my skill directing it, and that they might be sure I should never employ that but to their service. This, and a great deal more, brought us together again; and when we came to reasoning coolly, they blamed me for not giving them notice. Says I, "There was no room for me to explain the operation of the gun to you whilst the bird was on the wing, for it would have been gone out of my reach before I could have made you sensible of that, and so have escaped me; which, as you desired me to get it you, I was resolved it should not do. But for yourselves, surely you could have no diffidence in me; that is highly unbecoming of man to man, especially relations; and, above all, a relation to whom you have brought the welcomest news upon earth, in the love of my dear father, and his reconciliation to my wife."
At last, by degrees, I brought them to confess that it was only a groundless sudden terror which suppressed their reason for a while, but that what I said was all very true; and as their serious reflection returned, they were satisfied of it. I then stepped for the bird, and brought it to them; it was a very fine-feathered creature, and they were very much delighted with the beauty of it, and desired it might be laid upon the cart and carried home.
All the way we went afterwards to the grotto, nothing was to be heard from them but my praises, and what a great and wise man brother Peter was. "And no wonder now, sister Youwarkee," says Quangrollart, "once knowing him, could never leave him." It was not my business to gainsay this, but only to receive it with so much modesty as might serve to heighten their good opinion of me; and I found, upon my wife's return, that Quangrollart had painted me in no mean colours to his father.
I once more had the pleasure of entertaining them with the old fare, and some of the fresh fish, part boiled and part fried, which last they chose before the boiled. We made a very cheerful supper, talking over that day's adventures, and of their ensuing journey home, after which we retired to rest, mutually pleased. We all arose early the next morning. We took a short breakfast, after which Quangrollart and Rosig stuck their chaplets with the longest and most beautiful feathers of the bird I shot, thinking them a fine ornament. Being now ready for departure, they embraced me and the children, and were just taking flight, when it came into my head, that as the king's mistress had taken Tommy into her protection, it might possibly be a means of ingratiating him in her favour if I sent him the flageolet (for I had, in my wife's absence, made two others near as good, by copying exactly after it). I therefore desired to know if one of them would trouble himself with a small piece of wood I very much wanted to convey to my son. Rosig answered, "With all his heart; if it was not very long he would put it into his colapet." * So I stepped in, and fetching the flageolet, presented it to Rosig. My brother seeing it look oddly, with holes in it, desired (after he had asked if it was not a little gun) to have the handling of it. It was given him, and he surveyed it very attentively. Being inquisitive into the use of it, I told him it was a musical instrument, and played several tunes upon it; with which he and his companion were in raptures. I doubt not they would have sat a week to hear me if I would have gone on; but I desiring the latter to take care of its safety, he put it in his colapet, and away they went.
* A bag they always carry round the neck.
