'"Ay," says one, "a varra good sarmon, John; I think he'll du."'
'"Du," says John; "ay, fer a Sunday priest, I'll grant ye, he's aw weel enugh; byt fer clippens en kirsnens toder 'ill bang him aw't nowt."'
Mildred was no longer able to conceal that her head ached severely, and, at a whispered request from Polly, Dr. Heriot led the way to the farmhouse.
Strangers, seeing Wharton Hall for the first time, are always struck by the beauty of the old gateway, mantled in ivy, through which is the trim flower-bordered inclosure, with its comfortable dwelling-house and low, long dairy, and its picturesque remnant of ruins, the whole forming three sides of a quadrangle.
Wharton Hall itself was built by Thomas Lord Wharton about the middle of the sixteenth century, and is a good specimen of a house of the period. Part of it is now in ruins, a portion of it occupied as a farmhouse.
Mrs. Colby, a trim, natty-looking little body, was bustling about the great kitchen with her maids. Tea was not quite ready, and there was a short interval of waiting, in a long, narrow room upstairs, with a great window, looking over the dairy and garden, and the beautiful old gateway.
'I call this my ideal of a farmhouse!' cried Hugh enthusiastically, as they went down the old crazy staircase, having peeped into a great empty room, which Polly whispered would make a glorious ballroom.
The sunshine was streaming into the great kitchen through the narrow windows. July as it was, a bright fire burnt in the huge fireplace; the little round table literally groaned under the dainties with which it was spread; steel forks and delicate old silver spoons lay side by side, the great clock ticked, the red-armed maids went clattering through the flagged passages and dairies, a brood of little yellow chickens clucked and pecked outside in the dust.
'What a picture it all is,' said Olive; and Dr. Heriot laughed. The white dresses and the girls' fresh faces made up the principal part of the picture to him. The grand old kitchen, the sunshine, and the gateway outside were only the background, the accessories of the whole.
Polly wore a breast-knot of pale pinky roses; she had laid aside her broad-brimmed hat; as she moved hither and thither in her trailing dress, with her short, almost boyishly-cropped hair, she looked so graceful and piquante that Dr. Heriot's eyes followed her everywhere with unconscious pleasure.