"I am."
"Ah!"
There was something in the tone of his "Ah!" which whetted my curiosity, near the end of my tether though I was.
"Why do you ask?"
"It be about time as someone were to stay with them as were a bit capable like."
I did not know what he meant. I did not ask. I was beyond it. I was chilled to the bone, wet, tired, hungry. I had long been wishing that an old-fashioned Christmas had been completely extinct before I had thought of adventuring in quest of one. Better cousin Lucy's notion of the "festive season."
We passed through a gate, which I had to get down to open, along some sort of avenue. Suddenly the cart pulled up.
"Here we be."
That might be so. It was a pity he did not add where "here" was. There was a great shadow, which possibly did duty for a house, but, if so, there was not a light in any of the windows, and there was nothing visible in the shape of a door. The whereabouts of this, however, the driver presently made clear.
"There be the door in front of you; you go up three steps, if you can find 'em. There's a knocker, if none of 'em haven't twisted it off. If they have, there's a bell on your right, if it isn't broken."