The sunlight, streaming in at the little window above my bed,
wakened me early. I was at first perplexed at my unfamiliar
surroundings, but, recollecting at length the happenings of the
previous day, I got up and descended the stairs. At the door of the
coach house one of the men I had already seen was swilling the
wheel of a big coach with pails of water, whistling the while. He
grinned when he saw me, and said:
"Mistress said you was to go straight to kitchen when you waked,
and fill your stomick."
"I am mighty hungry, to be sure, but I should like to wash first,"
I replied.
"Why, you do look 'mazing grimy," he said with another grin. "Do ye
feel better this marnin'? You went into a faint like as I never did
see--a real female faint it was. I reckon as how you be overgrowed,
young man."
"Where shall I find the pump?" I asked, restive under this
reference to my unhappy attire.
"Ho, Giles!" he called, "take the young man to the poomp."
At this cry, Giles, in whom I recognized the second man whose skull
I had threatened to crack, appeared from round the corner of the
coach house. His face also wore a grin.
"Ay, true now, you do want the poomp," he said. "Come, and I'll
show 'ee. It do make a young feller weak-like when he overgrows his
strength. There was my sister Jane's Billy, to be sure, shot up
like a weed, he did, was for ever falling into fits, and a bit soft
in his noddle, too, poor soul.
"Here's the poomp; be 'ee strong enough to draw for yourself, think
'ee, or shall I do it for 'ee?"
I was strongly tempted to catch the fellow by the middle and give
him a back throw which would enlighten him as to my physical
aptitude; but I forbore, and allowed him to pump for me, which he
did with great willingness, discoursing the while on the
infirmities of all his kin.
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