Her daily task accomplished, she returned to the still room, prepared for a long morning over her conserves.  It was but half-past nine now; for the breakfast hour in baronial houses was seven all the year round, and today had been half-an-hour earlier on account of the press of work incident to the harvesting of the cherry crop.  Several of the servants who were generally occupied about the house had risen today with the lark, to be able to help their lady, and soon a busy, silent party was working in pantry and still room under the careful eye of the mistress.

One old woman who had been accommodated with a chair, though her fingers were as brisk as any of the younger girls’, from time to time addressed a question or a remark to her lady, which was always kindly answered.  She was the old nurse of Chad, having been nurse to Sir Oliver in his infancy, and having since had charge of his three boys during their earliest years.  She was growing infirm now, and seldom left her own little room in a sunny corner of the big house, where her meals were taken her by one of the younger maids.  But in the warm weather, when her stiff limbs gained a little more power, she loved on occasion to come forth and take a share in the life of the house, and work with the busy wenches under the mistress’s eye at the piles of fruit from the successive summer and autumn crops as they came in rotation.

“And where be the dear children?” she asked once; “I have not set eyes on them the livelong day.  Methought the very smell of the cherries would have brought them hither, as bees and wasps to a honey pot.”

The lady smiled slightly.

“I doubt not they will be here anon; but doubtless they have paid many visits to the trees ere the store was garnered.  I think they are in the tilt yard with Warbel.  It is there they are generally to be found in the early hours of the day.”

“They be fine, gamesome lads,” said the old woman fondly—­“chips of the old block, true Chads every one of them;” for the custom with the common people was to call the lord of the manor by the name of his house rather than by his own patronymic, and Sir Oliver was commonly spoken of as “Chad” by his retainers; a custom which lingered long in the south and west of the country.

“They are well-grown, hearty boys,” answered the mother quietly, though there was a light of tender pride in her eyes.  “Bertram is almost a man in looks, though he is scarce seventeen yet.  Seventeen!  How time flies!  It seems but yesterday since he was a little boy standing at my knee to say his light tasks, and walking to and fro holding his father’s hand.  Well, Heaven be praised, the years have been peaceful and prosperous, else would not they have fled by so swiftly.”

“Heaven be praised indeed!” echoed the old woman.  “For now the master is so safely seated at Chad that he would be a bold man who tried to oust him.  But in days gone by I have sorely feared yon proud Lord of Mortimer.  Methought he would try to do him a mischief.  His spleen and spite, as all men say, are very great.”