“Only think,” said Margaret, “all the while we were close where I started from. If May had known we were on the hills! We had better go to Mr Fisher’s. No one will be about, and I can go home later in the day.”
“Show me the way to the Warren,” said Geoffrey. “Why don’t you get up?”
“I tell ee my leg be twisted. I fell in a vlint-pit.”
“Well, point out the road, and I will return and fetch you.”
“Aw, you must go away on your left, toward thuck Folly—a’ be about a mile. It bean’t six chain from he to th’ waggon ruts as goes to Warren. But if you goes up the hill by the nut copse that’ll be sharter. Doan’t forget I. Zend Bill wi’ the cart.”
By following these directions they found Warren House in about half an hour. Margaret’s chief idea in returning there was because at so lonely a place their appearance at that early hour would attract less attention, and because she was hungry and thirsty, and the distance was much less than the ride to Greene Ferne. They could hear the clack of the mill as they approached; at the house, in front the shutters were not yet down, but Margaret, who knew the ways of the place, rode into the courtyard at the back, where was the dairy.
“Good morning, Jenny,” she said. A stout florid woman, who was carrying a bucket of water, looked up, started, and dropped it.
“Lor, miss, how you did froughten I! I be all of a jimmy-swiver,” and she visibly trembled, which was what she meant. Then seeing Geoffrey, she dropped a curtsey and began to wipe her naked arms and hands with her apron.
“I suppose Mr Fisher is in the barn?” said Margaret, not wishing the inquisitive old man to know the manner of their arrival.
“No, a’ bean’t up yet, miss. He be mostly about by four or ha’past; but he freggled (fidgeted) hisself auver thuck paason as come a bit ago, and a’ be a’bed to marning.”