My Young Days | Page 3

they had had so much salt meat at sea, that they smacked their lips to think of a nice fat goose for dinner. So they carried it off to their hut, and then they pulled off all the feathers one by one, and made it quite ready to cook. What funny cooks they must have been! But it wasn't quite time to roast it, so they tied it up by a string to the door and went away, leaving the captain's dog, Neptune, to watch it.
[Illustration: THE THIEF THAT STOLE THE GOOSE.]
Now, Nep was a very funny dog--a nervous dog, Uncle Hugh called him--and he was quite afraid something would happen. By and by, poor pussy came to have a peep at the goosey-gander, and she climbed up the steps on tip-toe just to look. Nep watched her, and didn't feel easy in his mind, and when poor pussy just stretched forward her head (because she was a little short-sighted, I dare say), Nep could bear it no longer. He gave a great loud bark, and flew along the road after the wretched, flying cat. Silly dog! while he was gone after puss, and just as he had his fore-paws quite over her back, up comes a sly thief to the hut door, quietly unhooks the bird, and runs off the other way, with its head hanging over his shoulder. "And, so, you see, Sissy," said Uncle Hugh in his funnily grave way, "poor Jack and I came back to find our dinner all gone!" But they got scent of the thief, and they caught him and shut him up in their little hut, and locked him in, and left him with nothing but bread and water. "For there was no policeman there, Sissy; we had to play policemen ourselves."
[Illustration: THE DREAM THAT HAUNTED THE THIEF.]
And there they left him all night. And the poor thief thought about his little hungry children at home, till he fell asleep and dreamt (I wonder how Uncle Hugh knew that?) that he saw the goose all smoking hot, gravy and all, and a knife and fork all ready to cut it up.
But they didn't mean to be cruel--I don't believe Uncle Hugh could be! So they had a nice, hot supper themselves on board the big ship, and plenty of fun, and lots of merry songs. And then they cut three big slices and put them aside.
And don't you think the thief-man must have been surprised when he saw the nice breakfast that Jack brought him next morning? I think Uncle Hugh said that he wrapped it all up and took it home to his children. How queer he must have felt as he slunk off, the sailors standing round and giving him three cheers and plenty of jokes!

III.
THE LITTLE STOWAWAY.
One of my earliest friends at the Park was a little French boy, a kind of page of my uncle's. Shall I tell you about him? You will think it very funny that a servant-boy should be allowed to be my friend, so I must explain.
Little Gus, as my uncle called him--though his real name was Gustave--was altogether a little foreigner. He couldn't talk English at all properly; in fact, the greater part of our conversation was carried on by signs. He was very much afraid of everybody in the house, except Uncle Hugh. He thought there was nobody in all the world like the Captain, as he called him. His bright eyes used to twinkle and his white teeth shine whenever he could find a chance of running an errand, or doing any little job for the Captain; and I think it was, perhaps, because he took me for the Captain's little pet that he grew so fond of me.
He would follow me all about the garden, and watch me as I talked away to Jane, and be ready to find my ball or fetch my hoop the minute I wanted them.
Now, after we had been a little while at the Park, I found that Jane had got very fond of flowers, and was always anxious to go to the glass-houses directly we came out into the garden.
"Why, Miss Sissy," she would say, "there never was anything like the ferns, and the orange-trees, and the cactuses in them houses; and Mr. Owen so civil-like in showing them to us, too."
So off we went to the hot-houses, and there Mr. Owen and Jane talked and talked till I got tired of the hot air, and went to play outside; and there just outside was Gus, always waiting to pick me the prettiest flowers, and find me the first sweet violets. But I was shy, and his words were so foreign that they frightened me; nor did I like at all being called "Petite