The day of their departure was one of the most glowing that the climax
of a long series of summer heats could evolve. The wide expanse of
landscape quivered up and down like the flame of a taper, as they
steamed along through the midst of it. Placid flocks of sheep reclining
under trees a little way off appeared of a pale blue colour. Clover
fields were livid with the brightness of the sun upon their deep red
flowers. All waggons and carts were moved to the shade by their careful
owners, rain-water butts fell to pieces; well-buckets were lowered
inside the covers of the well-hole, to preserve them from the fate of
the butts, and generally, water seemed scarcer in the country than the
beer and cider of the peasantry who toiled or idled there.
To see persons looking with children’s eyes at any ordinary scenery, is
a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new sensations
from an old experience--a healthy sign, rare in these feverish days--the
mark of an imperishable brightness of nature.
Both brother and sister could do this; Cytherea more noticeably. They
watched the undulating corn-lands, monotonous to all their companions;
the stony and clayey prospect succeeding those, with its angular and
abrupt hills. Boggy moors came next, now withered and dry--the spots
upon which pools usually spread their waters showing themselves as
circles of smooth bare soil, over-run by a net-work of innumerable
little fissures. Then arose plantations of firs, abruptly terminating
beside meadows cleanly mown, in which high-hipped, rich-coloured cows,
with backs horizontal and straight as the ridge of a house, stood
motionless or lazily fed. Glimpses of the sea now interested them, which
became more and more frequent till the train finally drew up beside the
platform at Budmouth.
‘The whole town is looking out for us,’ had been Graye’s impression
throughout the day. He called upon Mr. Gradfield--the only man who had
been directly informed of his coming--and found that Mr. Gradfield had
forgotten it.
However, arrangements were made with this gentleman--a stout, active,
grey-bearded burgher of sixty--by which Owen was to commence work in his
office the following week.