her.

"Ay," said she.

"Dick o' Will's o' Mally's o' Robin's o' Joan's o' owd Dick's,"
responded he, in a breath.

"Marry La'kin!" exclaimed Barbara, relieving her feelings by recourse to
her favourite epithet. She took the whole pedigree to be a polysyllabic
name. "Dear heart, to think of a country where the folk have names as
long as a cart-rope!"

"Bab, I am aweary!" said little Clare, rousing up from a nap which she
had taken leaning against Barbara.

"And well thou mayest, poor chick!" returned Barbara compassionately;
adding in an undertone,--"Could she ne'er have come so far as Kirkham!"

They toiled wearily on after this, until presently Dick o' Will's--I
drop the rest of the genealogy--drew bridle, and looking back, pointed
with his whip to the village which now lay close before them.

"See thee!" said he. "Yon's th' fold."

"Yon's what?" demanded Barbara.

The word was unintelligible to her, as Dick pronounced it "fowd;" but
had she understood it, she would have been little wiser. Fold meant to
her a place to pen sheep in, while it signified to Dick an enclosure
surrounded by houses.

"What is 't?" responded Dick. "Why, it's th' fowd."

"But what is `fowd'?" asked bewildered Barbara.

"Open thy een, wilt thou?" answered Dick cynically.

Barbara resigned the attempt to comprehend him, and, unwittingly
obeying, looked at the landscape.

Just the village itself was pretty enough. It was surrounded with
trees, through which white houses peeped out, clustered together on the
bank of the little brook. The spire of the village church towered up
through the foliage, close to the narrow footbridge; and beside it stood
the parsonage,--a long, low, stone house, embowered in ivy.

"Is yonder Enville Court?" asked Barbara, referring to the house in the
park.

"Ay," said Dick.

"And where dwelleth Master Tremayne?"

"Eh?"

"Master Tremayne--the parson--where dwelleth he?"

"Th' parson? Why, i' th' parsonage, for sure," said Dick, conclusively.
"Where else would thou have him?"

"Ay, in sooth, but which is the parsonage?"

"Close by th' church--where would thou have it?"

"What, yonder green house, all o'er ivy?"

"For sure."

They slowly filed into the village, rode past the church and
parsonage,--at which latter Barbara looked lovingly, as to a haven of
comfort--forded the brook, and turned in at the gates of Enville Court.
When they came up to the house, and saw it free of hinderi