Everybody laughed at this, and then, as the rowers increased their exertions to come in to the Tower stairs with some eclat, the barge soon was safely moored at the landing place.
"Here you are all of you," cried Ben, capering in his huge delight. "Here you all are. Come along. Oh, how hungry I am."
"That sounds as if you meant to eat us, Ben," said Sir Richard, as he stepped from the barge.
"Oh, dear no. Only I have got a little bit of lunch ready for you all, and as I helped to place it on the table it made me so hungry that I've been half mad ever since, and I'm as thirsty too as can be. Oh, Mr. Jeffery, I often think if the Thames were only strong ale, what a place the Tower would be."
"You may depend," said Sir Richard, "if it were, the government would pretty soon bottle it all off."
Johanna was going to step on shore, but Ben made a dash at her, and lifting her up as you would some little child, he seated her on his left arm, and so fairly carried her into the Tower.
"You wait, Miss Arabella," he cried. "I'll come for you."
This so alarmed Miss Wilmot that she sprang on shore in a moment, and all the party laughed heartily to see Mark Ingestrie flying along after Ben, and shouting as he went—
"Put her down—put her down! Ben!—Ben! She'd rather walk. Put her down!"
Ben paid no manner of attention to any of these remonstrances, but carried Johanna right into the Tower before he set her upon her feet again, which he then did as tenderly as though she had been some infant, only just learning to walk.