Nuncey and the stationmaster were wise weather prophets. Here on the uplands the grey veil of morning fell apart, and dissolved so suddenly that before Hester had time to wonder the miracle was accomplished. A flood of sunshine broke over the ripening cornfields to right and left; the song of larks rang forth almost with a shout; beyond the golden ridges of the wheat the grey vapour faded as breath off a mirror, and lo! a clear line divided the turquoise sky from a sea of intensest iris-blue. As she watched the transformation her heart gave a lift, and the past few hours fell from her like an evil dream. The stuffy compartment, the blear-eyed lamp, the train's roar and rattle, the forlorn arrival on the windy platform—all slipped away into a remote past. She had passed the gates of fear and entered an enchanted land.
As she looked abroad upon it she marvelled at a hundred differences between it and her native Midlands. It was wilder—infinitely wilder—than Warwickshire, and at the same time less unkempt; far more savage in outline, yet in detail sober almost to tidiness. It seemed to acknowledge the hand of some great unknown gardener; and this gardener was, of course, the sea-breeze now filling her lungs and bracing her strength. The shaven, landward-bending thorns and hollies, the close-trimmed hedgerow, the clean-swept highroad, alike proclaimed its tireless attentions. It favoured its own plants, too—the tamarisk on the hedge, the fuchsia and myrtle in the cottage garden. As the spring-cart nid-nodded down the hill towards Troy, the grey roofs of the town broke upon Hester's sight beyond a cloud of fuchsia blossoms in a garden at the angle of the road.
So steep was the hill, and so closely these roofs and chimneys huddled against it, that Hester leaned back with a catch of the breath that set Nuncey laughing. For the moment she verily supposed herself on the edge of a precipice. She caught one glimpse of a blue water and the masts of shipping, and clutched at the cart-rail as the old grey began to slither at a businesslike jog-trot down a street so narrow that, to make way for them, passers-by on foot ran hastily to the nearest doorways, whence one and all nodded good-naturedly at Nuncey. Of some houses the doors were reached by steep flights of steps tunnelled through the solid rock; of others by wooden stairways leading to balconies painted blue or green and adorned with pot-plants—geraniums, fuchsias, lemon-verbenas—on ledges imminent over Hester's head. The most of the passers-by were women carrying pails of water, or country folks with baskets of market stuff. The whole street seemed to be cleaning up and taking in provisions for the day, and all amid a buzz of public gossip, one housewife pausing on her balcony as she shook a duster, and leaning over to discuss market prices with her neighbour chaffering below. The cross-fire of talk died down as the dealers dispersed, snatching up their wares from under the wheels of the spring-cart, while the women took long, silent stock of Hester's appearance and dress. Behind her it broke forth again, louder than ever.
At the foot of the hill they swung round a corner, and passing a public-house and the rails of the parish church, threaded their way round two more corners, and entered a street scarcely less narrow than the other, but level. Here Nuncey drew up before an ope through which Hester caught another glimpse of blue-green water. They had arrived.
A grinning lad lifted out Hester's trunk and bore it down the ope to a green-painted doorway, where a rosy-faced, extremely solemn child stared out on the world over a green-painted board, fixed across with the evident purpose of confining him to the house. Having despatched this urchin to warn his mother that 'the furriner was come,' the lad heaved his burden over the board, dumped it down inside with a bang, and returned, still grinning amiably, to take charge of horse and cart.
"If you want to know t'other from which in our family," said Nuncey, "there's nothing like beginning early. This is Shake."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Father had him christened Shakespeare, but we call him Shake for short. It sounds more natural, somehow. And this here is Robert Burns," she went on, leading the way to the green-painted doorway where the small urchin had resumed his survey of the world beyond home. "That's another of father's inventions; but the poor cheeld pulled down the kettle when he was eighteen months old and scalded hisself all over, so he's gone by his full name ever since. Mother!" Nuncey called aloud, stepping over the barrier. "Here's the new school-teacher!"
A middle-aged, fair-haired woman, with a benign but puzzled smile, appeared in the passage, holding a baby at the breast.
"You're kindly welcome, my dear; that is, if you'll excuse my hair being in curl-papers. Dear me, now!" Mrs. Benny regarded Hester with a look of honest perplexity. "And I was expectin' an older-lookin' person altogether!"