Rachel could not help colouring with pleasure at the notion of riding

her own Meg again, and Alick freely owned that it was well thought of.

He already had a horse at his uncle's, and was delighted to see Rachel

at last looking forward to something. But as she lay back in the

carriage, revelling in the fresh wind, she became dismayed at the

succession of cottages of gentility, with lawns and hedges of various

pretensions.

"There must be a terrible number of people here!"

"This is only Littleworthy."

"Not very little."

"No; I told you it was villafied and cockneyfied. There," as the horses

tried to stop at a lodge leading to a prettily built house, "that's

Timber End, the crack place here, where Bessie has always said it was

her ambition to live."

"How far is it from the Parsonage?"

"Four miles."

Which was a comfort to Rachel, not that she wished to be distant from

Bessie, but the population appalled her imagination.

"Bishopsworthy is happily defended by a Dukery," explained Alick, as

coming to the end of the villas they passed woods and fields, a bit of

heathy common, and a scattering of cottages. Labourers going home from

work looked up, and as their eyes met Alick's there was a mutual smile

and touch of the hat. He evidently felt himself coming home. The trees

of a park were beginning to rise in front, when the carriage turned

suddenly down a sharp steep hill; the right side of the road bounded by

a park paling; the left, by cottages, reached by picturesque flights

of brick stairs, then came a garden wall, and a halt. Alick called out,

"Thanks," and "we will get out here," adding, "They will take in the

goods the back way. I don't like careering into the churchyard."

Rachel, alighting, saw that the lane proceeded downwards to a river

crossed by a wooden bridge, with an expanse of meadows beyond. To her

left was a stable-yard, and below it a white gate and white railings

enclosing a graveyard, with a very beautiful church standing behind a

mushroom yew-tree. The upper boundary of the churchyard was the clipped

yew hedge of the rectory garden, whose front entrance was through

the churchyard. There was a lovely cool tranquillity of aspect as the

shadows lay sleeping on the grass; and Rachel could have stood and

gazed, but Alick opened the gate, and there was a movement at the seat

that enclosed the gnarled trunk of the yew tree. A couple of village

lads touched their caps and departed the opposite way, a white setter

dog bounded forward, and, closely attended by a still snowier cat, a

gentleman came to meet them, so fearlessly treading the pathway between

the graves, and so youthful in figure, that it was only the "Well,

uncle, here she is," and, "Alick, my dear boy," that convinced her that

this was indeed Mr. Clare. The next moment he had taken her hand, kissed

her brow, and spoken a few words of fatherly blessing, then, while

Alick exchanged greetings with the cat and dog, he led her to the arched

yew-tree entrance to his garden, up two stone steps, along a flagged

path across the narrow grass-plat in front of the old two-storied house,

with a tiled verandah like an eyebrow to the lower front windows.




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