Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

27
CHAPTER IV.
I  RUN  A  GREAT  DANGER  IN  THE   HOUSE   OF   SHAWS.
FOR a day that was begun so ill, the day passed fairly
well. We had the porridge cold again at noon, and hot
porridge at night: porridge and small beer was my
uncle's diet. He spoke but little, and that in the same
way as before, shooting a question at me after a long
silence; and when I sought to lead him in talk about
my future, slipped out of it again. In a room next door
to the kitchen, where he suffered me to go, I found a
great number of books, both Latin and English, in
which I took great pleasure all the afternoon. Indeed
the time passed so lightly in this good company, that I
began to be almost reconciled to my residence at Shaws;
and nothing but the sight of my uncle, and his eyes
playing hide and seek with mine, revived the force of
my distrust.
One thing I discovered, which put me in some doubt.
This was an entry on the fly-leaf of a chapbook (one of
Patrick Walker's) plainly written by my father's hand
and thus conceived: "To my brother Ebenezer on his
fifth birthday." Now, what puzzled me was this:
That as my father was of course the younger brother,
he must either have made some strange error, or he must