But it really was not such an easy matter as some people might suppose, and especially was it difficult to manage at night. The boys divided the work in a business-like manner, and took turns to go down every alternate hour to feed their troublesome foster-children. Zillah, the cook, allowed the hutch to be brought into the kitchen at night, and undertook to feed the pigs at six o'clock in the morning, but until then the boys were responsible and never once flinched from what they had undertaken. It was getting cold weather now, and bed was delightfully cosy and warm, but nevertheless little Gabriel would tumble out with his eyes half shut, at Roger's first whisper of "Your turn now," and creep through the lonely house and down the kitchen stairs. They had arranged an ingenious feeding apparatus with a quill inserted through the cork of a medicine bottle, and the pigs took to it quite kindly, sucked away vigorously, and throve apace. But it was hard work, when the first excitement of it was over, and Gabriel felt it particularly; he was a delicate boy, and after one or two of these night excursions he would lie shivering in his little bed, and find it impossible to go to sleep again, while Roger snored peacefully at his side. It need hardly be said that the vicar knew nothing of these proceedings, and Ben was at college, so matters were allowed to go on in this way for nearly a month, by which time Gabriel had managed to get a very bad cold on his chest, and a cough. As the pigs got fatter, and rounder, and more lively, he became thinner, and whiter, and weaker--a perfect shadow of a little boy; but still he would not give up his share of the work, until one day he woke up from what seemed to him to have been a long sleep, and found that he was lying in bed, in a room which was still called the "nursery," and that he felt very tired and weak. He pulled aside the curtain with a feeble little hand, and saw Roger sitting there quite quietly, with his head bent over a book. How strange everything was! What did it all mean? Then Roger raised his head. "Oh, you're awake!" he said looking very pleased, "I will go and call nurse." He was going away on tip-toe, but Gabriel beckoned to him and he came near. "Roger," he said in a small whispering voice, "why am I in this room?" "You're not to talk," said Roger. "You've been ill for a long time--a fever--and oh," clasping his hands, "how you have been going on about the pigs! You tried to get out of bed no end of times to go and feed them; and I heard the doctor say to father, `We must manage to subdue this restlessness--he _must_ have some quiet sleep.' And oh, we were all so glad when you went to sleep, and now you will get quite well soon." Gabriel tried to say, "How are the pigs?" but he was really too weak, so he only smiled, and Roger hurried out of the room to call the nurse.