leep, and I've woke up in the dark,
because it's night; and that's about the worst of it. I don't see
anything to mind. There's no watch to keep, so I sha'n't be roused up
by that precious bell; and as every sailor ought to get a good long
sleep whenever he can, why here goes."

Perhaps Hilary Leigh's thoughts were not quite so doughty as his words;
but whatever his thoughts were, he fought them down in the most manful
way, stretched himself out upon the straw, and after lying thinking for
a few minutes he dropped off fast asleep, breathing as regularly and
easily as if he had been on board the _Kestrel_, and rocked in the
cradle of the deep.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A MORE PLEASANT AWAKENING, WITH A HUNGRY FIT.

"Tchu weet--tchu weet--tchu weet! Come to tea, Jack! Come to tea,
Jack! Come to tea, Jack! Whips Kitty! Whips Kitty! Whips Kitty!
Tcho-tcho-tcho!"

Hilary Leigh lay half awake, listening to the loud song of a thrush,
full-throated and joyous, whistling away to his mate sitting close by in
her clay cup of a nest upon four pale greenish-blue spotted eggs; and as
he heard the notes he seemed to be in the old bedroom at Sir Henry
Norland's, where he used to leave his window open to be called by the
birds.

Yes, he was back in the old place, and here was the rich, ruddy, golden
light of the sun streaming in at his window, and through on to the
opposite wall; and it was such a beautiful morning that he would jump up
and take his rod, and go down to the big hole in the river. The tench
would bite like fun on a morning like this. There were plenty of big
worms, too, in the old watering-pot, tough as worms should be after a
good scouring in a heap of wet moss. Just another five minutes and he'd
get up, and when he met Adela at breakfast he could brag about what a
good one he was at early rising, and show her all the beautiful tench,
and--

"Hallo! Am I awake?"

There was no mistake about it. He was wide awake now, and it was years
ago that he used to listen to the birds in his old bedroom at Sir Henry
Norland's; and though a thrush was whistling away outside, and the
rising sun was streaming in at a window and shining on the opposite
wall, where he was now Hilary Leigh did not know, only that he was
seated on a heap of straw, and that he was in what looked like a part of
an old-fashioned chapel, with a window high up above his reach.

"I feel as if I had been asleep for about a week," muttered Hila