“Take courage, then, for we are near home, where the mother is waiting to welcome us with a bright fire and a nice tea table,” said the curate.
“Yes, papa. Don’t mind me, dear. It is a healthful weariness that will make me sleep all the better,” replied Jennie.
But the last words were fairly jolted out of her mouth, for the carryall was now ascending a very steep hill.
The curate turned his head again to speak to his daughter.
“We are entering the village, dear, and the church and parsonage are at this end. You can see nothing from where you sit behind there. If you could you would see a stony road, with paving stones set sharp edge up to make a hold for horses’ hoofs, otherwise they could scarcely climb it And you would see high stone walls on each side of the road, with plantations behind them. These walls, my dear, inclose Haymore Park, through a portion of which this road runs. On the top of the hill is Haymore Old Church and Rectory. There is our home at present. There is an old graveyard around the church, and an old garden around the rectory. All this is at the entrance of the village, which stretches on both sides of the road over the hill and down the declivity. All around the manor, the church and the village roll the everlasting moors from the center to the circumference. There, my dear, you have a picture of our home, though you cannot see it.”
“I see it in my mind’s eye, papa.”
All this time the mule was toiling slowly, painfully up the steep ascent.
Jennie, straining her eyes to look forward, saw nothing for a while but the black forms of her father and the driver against the darkness, but presently fitful lights glanced in sight and disappeared. After a while they grew more steady and stationary, and Jennie recognized
“The lights in the village,”
though they were still distant before her.