"We-l-l, yes, I have," he admitted with a drawl, and was about to add something more, when Dorothy, who had deposited 'Bitha in the boat, and was now getting in to take her own place in the stern, said to him, "Come with us, Johnnie, and we'll take you home, as we pass quite close to your"—hesitating a second—"your house."
"No, thank ye, mistress," he replied, grinning proudly at the dignity she had bestowed upon his humble abode. "I've that will take me up to Dame Chine, at the Fountain Inn, an' I should be there this very minute, an' not chatterin' here. But I was tired, an' when I came along an' saw old Leet, sat down to rest a bit."
"When are you intending to fetch that pink ribbon you promised me weeks ago, and the lace for Aunt Lettice?" demanded Dorothy, as Mary Broughton stepped over the intervening seats, past Leet, at the oars, with small 'Bitha alongside him, and took her place beside her friend.
"I've both in my pack, up at the hut; I'll bring 'em to the house this week, ye may depend on it," answered Johnnie, as Pashar pushed off the boat, springing nimbly in as the keel left the sand.
"If you do not, I'll never buy another thing from you so long as I live," the girl called back, with a wilful toss of her head, as Leet pulled away with strong, rapid strokes.
"'T is all wrong for two pretty ones like them to be roamin' 'round in such fashion," said Johnnie to himself, as he stooped to take up his pack. Then suddenly, as if remembering something, he turned to the shore and called out, "Shall ye find Master John at home, think ye, Mistress Dorothy?"
Her voice came back silvery clear over the distance of water lying between them. "No; he is up at the Fountain Inn."
"Ah, as I thought," the pedler muttered, with a meaning smile. "I'll just be in the nick o' time."
"What think you it all means, Mary?" Dorothy asked, the two sitting close together in the boat.
"What all means?" echoed Mary, in an absent-minded way, her head turned toward the shore they were leaving, where on the higher land the far-away windows of the Fountain Inn were showing like glimmering stars in the light of the setting sun.