“Mustn’t. Forbidden,” said Mercer to me, and he knocked again.
“Don’t want any!” shouted the same voice, and a big, sour-looking, dark-faced woman came to the door.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Master Mercer? What do you want?”
“I say, Cookie, this is the new boy.”
“Nice pair of you, I’ll be bound,” she said roughly.
“We’ve been out, and had an accident, and tumbled into a pond.”
“Serve you both right. Wonder you weren’t both drowned,” she said sharply.
“Don’t tell anybody,” continued Mercer, in no wise alarmed. “We nearly were, only Jem Roff at Dawson’s farm came and pulled us out.”
“Oh, my dear bairns,” cried the woman, with her face and voice changing, “what would your poor mammas have said?”
“It’s all right, though,” said Mercer, “only our things are soaked. Do have ’em down and dried for us by the morning.”