So
we seated ourselves, all three, for a while round the smouldering
fire. Mr. Gulliver's servant scarcely took his eyes from my face. And,
a little to my confusion, his first astonishment of me had now passed
away, and in its stead had fallen such a gentleness and humour as I
should not have supposed possible in his wild countenance. He busied
himself over his strips of skin, but if he caught my eye upon his own
he would smile out broadly, and nod his great, hairy head at me, till
I fancied myself a child again and he some vast sweetheart of my
nurse.
When we had supped (sitting together in the great room), I climbed the
ladder into the loft and was soon fast asleep. But from dreams
distracted with confusion I awoke at the first shafts of dawn. I stood
beside the narrow window in the wall of the loft and watched the
distant river change to silver, the bright green of the grass appear.
This seemed a place of few and timorous birds, and of fewer trees. But
all across the dews of the grasses lay a tinge of powdered gold, as
if yellow flowers were blooming in abundance there.
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