Clare Avery | Page 3

a large bay-window, in the middle compartment of which were several coats of arms in stained glass. A table, which groaned under a mass of books and papers, nearly filled the room; and writing at it sat a venerable-looking, white-haired man, who, seeing Barbara, laid down his pen, wiped his spectacles, and placidly inquired what she wanted. He will be an old friend to some readers: for he was John Avery of Bradmond.
"Master, an't like you, have you seen Mrs Clare of late?"
"How late, Barbara?"
"Marry, not the fourth part of an hour gone, I left the child in the nursery a-playing with her puppet, when I went down to let in Hal Dockett, and carry him to see what ailed the black cow; and now I be back, no sign of the child is any whither. I have been in every chamber, and looked in the nursery thrice."
"Where should she be?" quietly demanded Mr Avery.
"Marry, where but in the nursery, without you had fetched her away."
"And where should she not be?"
"Why, any other whither but here and there,--more specially in the garden."
"Nay, then, reach me my staff, Barbara, and we will go look in the garden. If that be whither our little maid should specially not be, 'tis there we be bound to find her."
"Marry, but that is sooth!" said Barbara heartily, bringing the walking-stick. "Never in all my life saw I child that gat into more mischievousness, nor gave more trouble to them that had her in charge."
"Thy memory is something short, Barbara," returned her master with a dry smile, "'Tis but little over a score of years sithence thou wert used to say the very same of her father."
"Eh, Master!--nay, not Master Walter!" said Barbara, deprecatingly.
"Well, trouble and sorrow be ever biggest in the present tense," answered he. "And I wot well thou hast a great charge on thine hands."
"I reckon you should think so, an' you had the doing of it," said Barbara complacently. "Up ere the lark, and abed after the nightingale! What with scouring, and washing, and dressing meat, and making the beds, and baking, and brewing, and sewing, and mending, and Mrs Clare and you atop of it all--"
"Nay, prithee, let me drop off the top, so thou lame me not, for the rest is enough for one woman's shoulders."
"In good sooth, Master, but you lack as much looking after, in your way, as Mrs Clare doth; for verily your head is so lapped in your books and your learning, that I do think, an' I tended you not, you should break your fast toward eventide, and bethink you but to-morrow at noon that you had not supped overnight."
"Very like, Barbara,--very like!" answered the old man with a meek smile. "Thou hast been a right true maid unto me and mine,--as saith Solomon of the wise woman, thou hast done us good and not evil, all the days of thy life. The Lord apay thee for it!--Now go thou forward, and search for our little maid, and I will abide hither until thou bring her. If I mistake not much, thou shalt find her within a stone's throw of the fishpond."
"The fishpond?--eh, Master!"
And Barbara quickened her steps to a run, while John Avery sat down slowly upon a stone seat on the terrace, leaning both hands on his staff, as if he could go no farther. Was he very tired? No. He was only very, very near Home.
Close to the fishpond, peering intently into it between the gaps of the stone balustrade, Barbara at length found what she sought, in the shape of a little girl of six years old. The child was spoiling her frock to the best of her ability, by lying on the snow-sprinkled grass; but she was so intent upon something which she saw, or wanted to see, that her captor's approach was unheard, and Barbara pounced on her in triumph without any attempt at flight.
"Now, Mrs Clare, [a fictitious character] come you hither with me!" said Barbara, seizing the culprit. "Is this to be a good child, think you, when you were bidden abide in the nursery?"
"O Bab!" said the child, half sobbingly. "I wanted to see the fishes."
"You have seen enough of the fishes for one morrow," returned Barbara relentlessly; "and if the fishes could see you, they should cry shame upon you for ruinating of your raiment by the damp grass."
"But the fishes be damp, Bab!" remonstrated Clare. Barbara professed not to hear the last remark, and lifting the small student of natural history, 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