“Well, trouble and sorrow be ever biggest in the present tense,” answered he. “And I wot well thou hast a great charge on thine hands.”
“I reckon you should think so, an’ you had the doing of it,” said Barbara complacently. “Up ere the lark, and abed after the nightingale! What with scouring, and washing, and dressing meat, and making the beds, and baking, and brewing, and sewing, and mending, and Mrs Clare and you atop of it all—”
“Nay, prithee, let me drop off the top, so thou lame me not, for the rest is enough for one woman’s shoulders.”
“In good sooth, Master, but you lack as much looking after, in your way, as Mrs Clare doth; for verily your head is so lapped in your books and your learning, that I do think, an’ I tended you not, you should break your fast toward eventide, and bethink you but to-morrow at noon that you had not supped overnight.”
“Very like, Barbara,—very like!” answered the old man with a meek smile. “Thou hast been a right true maid unto me and mine,—as saith Solomon of the wise woman, thou hast done us good and not evil, all the days of thy life. The Lord apay thee for it!—Now go thou forward, and search for our little maid, and I will abide hither until thou bring her. If I mistake not much, thou shalt find her within a stone’s throw of the fishpond.”
“The fishpond?—eh, Master!”
And Barbara quickened her steps to a run, while John Avery sat down slowly upon a stone seat on the terrace, leaning both hands on his staff, as if he could go no farther. Was he very tired? No. He was only very, very near Home.
Close to the fishpond, peering intently into it between the gaps of the stone balustrade, Barbara at length found what she sought, in the shape of a little girl of six years old. The child was spoiling her frock to the best of her ability, by lying on the snow-sprinkled grass; but she was so intent upon something which she saw, or wanted to see, that her captor’s approach was unheard, and Barbara pounced on her in triumph without any attempt at flight.
“Now, Mrs Clare, (a fictitious character) come you hither with me!” said Barbara, seizing the culprit. “Is this to be a good child, think you, when you were bidden abide in the nursery?”
“O Bab!” said the child, half sobbingly. “I wanted to see the fishes.”