Clare Avery | Page 4

bore her, pouting and reluctant, to her grandfather on the
terrace.
"So here comes my little maid," said he, pleasantly. "Why didst not
abide in the nursery, as thou wert bid, little Clare?"
"I wanted to see the fishes," returned Clare, still pouting.
"We cannot alway have what we want," answered he.
"You can!" objected Clare.
"Nay, my child, I cannot," gravely replied her grandfather. "An' I could,
I would have alway a good, obedient little grand-daughter."
Clare played with Mr Avery's stick, and was silent.
"Leave her with me, good Barbara, and go look after thy mighty
charges," said her master, smiling. "I will bring her within ere long."
Barbara trotted off, and Clare, relieved from the fear of her duenna,
went back to her previous subject.
"Gaffer, what do the fishes?"
"What do they? Why, swim about in the water, and shake their tails,
and catch flies for their dinner."
"What think they on, Gaffer?"
"Nay, thou art beyond me there. I never was a fish. How can I tell

thee?"
"Would they bite me?" demanded Clare solemnly.
"Nay, I reckon not."
"What, not a wild fish?" said Clare, opening her dark blue eyes.
Mr Avery laughed, and shook his head.
"But I would fain know--And, O Gaffer!" exclaimed the child,
suddenly interrupting herself, "do tell me, why did Tom kill the pig?"
"Kill the pig? Why, for that my Clare should have somewhat to eat at
her dinner and her supper."
"Killed him to eat him?" wonderingly asked Clare, who had never
associated live pigs with roast pork.
"For sure," replied her grandfather.
"Then he had not done somewhat naughty?"
"Nay, not he."
"I would, Gaffer," said Clare, very gravely, "that Tom had not
smothered the pig ere he began to lay eggs. [The genuine speech of a
child of Clare's age.] I would so have liked a little pig!"
The suggestion of pig's eggs was too much for Mr Avery's gravity.
"And what hadst done with a little pig, my maid."
"I would have washed it, and donned it, and put it abed," said Clare.
"Methinks he should soon have marred his raiment. And maybe he
should have loved cold water not more dearly than a certain little maid
that I could put a name to."
Clare adroitly turned from this perilous topic, with an unreasoning

dread of being washed there and then; though in truth it was not
cleanliness to which she objected, but wet chills and rough friction.
"Gaffer, may I go with Bab to four-hours unto Mistress Pendexter?"
"An' thou wilt, my little floweret."
Mr Avery rose slowly, and taking Clare by the hand, went back to the
house. He returned to his turret-study, but Clare scampered upstairs,
possessed herself of her doll, and ran in and out of the inhabited rooms
until she discovered Barbara in the kitchen, beating up eggs for a
pudding.
"Bab, I may go with thee!"
"Go with me?" repeated Barbara, looking up with some surprise.
"Marry, Mrs Clare, I hope you may."
"To Mistress Pendexter!" shouted Clare ecstatically.
"Oh ay!" assented Barbara. "Saith the master so?"
Clare nodded. "And, Bab, shall I take Doll?"
This contraction for Dorothy must have been the favourite name with
the little ladies of the time for the plaything on which it is now
inalienably fixed.
"I will sew up yon hole in her gown, then, first," said Barbara, taking
the doll by its head in what Clare thought a very disrespectful manner.
"Mrs Clare, this little gown is cruel ragged; if I could but see time, I
had need make you another."
"Oh, do, Bab!" cried Clare in high delight.
"Well, some day," replied Barbara discreetly.
A few hours later, Barbara and Clare were standing at the door of a
small, neat cottage in a country lane, where dwelt Barbara's sister,

Marian Pendexter, [a fictitious person] widow of the village
schoolmaster. The door was opened by Marian herself, a woman some
five years the senior of her sister, to whom she bore a good deal of
likeness, but Marian was the quieter mannered and the more silent of
the two.
"Marry, little Mistress Clare!" was her smiling welcome. "Come in,
prithee, little Mistress, and thou shalt have a buttered cake to thy
four-hours. Give thee good even, Bab."
A snowy white cloth covered the little round table in the cottage, and
on it were laid a loaf of bread a piece of butter, and a jug of milk. In
honour of her guests, Marian went to her cupboard, and brought out a
mould of damson cheese, a bowl of syllabub, and a round tea-cake,
which she set before the fire to toast.
"And how fareth good Master Avery?" asked Marian, as she closed the
cupboard door, and came back.
Barbara shook her head ominously.