"I think we had better go home and tell mother every thing," said one of them. "Besides, we ought to see what has become of poor Gardener. He was very wet."
"Yes, but oh, how funny he looked!" And they all burst out laughing at the recollection of the figure he cut, scrambling out through the ice with his trowsers dripping up to the knees, and the water running out of his boots, making a little pool, wherever he stepped.
"And it freezes so hard, that by the time he gets home his clothes will be as stiff as a board. His wife will have to put him to the fire to thaw before he can get out of them."
Again the little people burst into shouts of laughter. Although they laughed, they were a little sorry for the poor old Gardener, and hoped no great harm had come to him, but that he had got safe home and been dried by his own warm fire.
The frosty mist was beginning already to rise, and the sun, though still high up in the sky, looked like a ball of red-hot iron as the six children went homeward across the fields—merry enough still, but not quite so merry as they had been a few hours before.
"Let's hope mother won't be vexed with us," said they, "but will let us come back again to-morrow. It wasn't our fault that Gardener tumbled in."
As somebody said this, they all heard quite distinctly, "Ha, ha, ha!" and "Ho, ho, ho!" and a sound of little steps pattering behind.
But whatever they thought, nobody ventured to say that it was the fault of the Brownie.
