"I'm sure I'll not be at the trouble of carrying it," said he, when the children cried out at this; "and you shan't carry it either, for you'll knock it about and spoil it. And as for your lunch getting warm in my pocket, why, so much the better this cold day." It was not a lively joke, and they knew the pocket was very dirty; indeed, the little girls had seen him stuff a dead rat into it only the day before. They looked ready to cry; but there was no help for them, except going back and complaining to their mother, and they did not like to do that. Besides, they knew that, though Gardener was cross, he was trustworthy, and she would never let them go down to the lake without him. So they followed him, trying to be as good as they could--though it was difficult work. One of them proposed pelting him with snowballs, as they pelted each other. But at the first--which fell in his neck--he turned round so furiously, that they never sent a second, but walked behind him as meek as mice. As they went, they heard little steps pattering after them. "Perhaps it is the Brownie to play with us--I wish he would," whispered the youngest girl to the eldest boy, whose hand she generally held; and then the little pattering steps sounded again, traveling through the snow, but they saw nobody--so they said nothing. The children would have liked to go straight to the ice; but Gardener insisted on taking them a mile round, to look at an extraordinary animal which a farmer there had just got--sent by his brother in Australia. The two old men stood gossiping so long that the children wearied extremely. Every minute seemed an hour till they got on the ice. At last one of them pulled Gardener's coat-tails, and whispered that they were quite ready to go. "Then I'm not," and he waited ever so much longer, and got a drink of hot cider, which made him quite lively for a little while. But by the time they reached the lake, he was as cross as ever. He struck the ice with his stick, but made no attempt to see if it really did bear--though he would not allow the children to go one step upon it till he had tried. "I know it doesn't bear, and you'll just have to go home again--a good thing too--saves me from losing a day's work." "Try, only try; Bill said it bore," implored the boys, and looked wistfully at the two beautiful slides--just as Bill said, one up and one down--stretching all across the lake; "of course it bears, or Bill could not have made these slides."