"No matter! We never minds a bit of hungry when we're out asploring."
I did not know then, what now I know, that my little boy who could not learn his lessons and had always been in disgrace, was a born gentleman, but my throat was thick and my eyes were swimming and to hide my emotion I pretended to be ill.
"I know," said Martin. "Dizzingtory! [dysentery]. We allus has dizzingtory when we're out asploring."
There was one infallible cure for that, though—milk!
"I allus drinks a drink of milk, and away goes the dizzingtory in a jiffy."
This recalled the bottle, but when I twisted it round on my belt, hoping to make amends for the lost biscuit, I found to my confusion that it had suffered from the same misadventure, being cracked in the bottom, and every drop of the contents gone.
That was the last straw, and the tears leapt to my eyes, but Martin went on whistling and singing and ringing the big bell as if nothing had happened.
The darkness deepened, the breath of night came sweeping over the sea, the boom of the billows on the rock became still more terrible, and I began to shiver.
"The sack!" cried Martin. "We allus sleeps in sacks when we're out asploring."
I let him do what he liked with me now, but when he had packed me up in the sack, and put me to lie at the foot of the triangle, telling me I was as right as ninepence, I began to think of something I had read in a storybook, and half choking with sobs I said: