On he sailed, after that, swiftly and silently, over the sparkling billows of the little lake. Almost before he was aware of it, the punt ran ashore at the place where Nanny had so skilfully pitched him over her head. He saw the two-wheeled barrow among the weeds a few yards away and he went and brought it to the margin. Into it he carried, with great care and an appearance of something like respect, the great folio History of the Normans.
"I'll go home now," he thought, "but I wish I had Lars with me, and Father Brian. I'd like to show father and mother and all of them my armour."
He found it tiresome work to trundle the barrow, and he was both warm and weary when he reached his grandfather's gate.
"There they are!" he exclaimed. "There's a whole crowd of them, waiting for me."
"Hullo, Ned!" came loudly from within the gate. "Where have you been all day?"
"Why, Uncle Jack—"
"My dear child!" interrupted Grandmother Webb. "I was almost beginning to be worried about you. Why did you stay so?"
"Did you catch anything?" asked his grandfather. "Did you get any bites?"