"Mind how you go," he said. "Take it easy. Easy does it."
"But I can walk, Ben."
"Very good. Mind how you does, you nice little thing. Oh, I likes you a great deal better in the petticoats and not the breeches."
"Well, Ben," said Mark Ingestrie, "I am certainly very much obliged to you—very much, indeed."
"Don't mention it, my boy," replied Ben, totally oblivious of the manner in which Mark Ingestrie uttered the words—a manner which betrayed some little pique upon the occasion. The laughter of Johanna and his friends, however, soon chased away the temporary cloud.
"Where's the t'other little one?" said Ben.
"I am here," cried Arabella, laughing.
"Oh, you got on without me, did you? Very good: only if you had only waited, I shouldn't have thought it no trouble at all, whatsomedever. Easy does it, you know."
"Thank you, Ben. I'd just as soon walk, and a little rather, perhaps, of the two. It was quite amusing enough to see you carry Johanna."
"Well—well, there ain't much gratitude in this world. Come on, all of you, for you must be famished; and as for me, I haven't had a bit of anything to eat for a whole hour and a half, and then it was only a pound and three quarters of beef-steak, and a half quartern loaf!"