It was broad daylight when Darby and Joan awoke and sat up to look about them. For a few minutes they remembered nothing of what had occurred, and could not make out where they were. Oh yes, of course, Darby at length understood. They were in a caravan where they had sheltered all night, not very far from the foot of that hill over whose summit lay the entrance to the country which they had set out to seek.
He slid cautiously off the shelf, helped Joan to put on her frock and tie her shawl round her again; then they opened the door, stole down the steps, and there they paused in dismay. The caravan had come to a standstill, and been drawn up on the edge of a stretch of dreary common; the horses were unyoked, and grazing near by. Along the further boundary of the common wound a broad, level highway, bordered by a wide footpath; and in the distance, from the valley front, rose the towers, spires, and smoking chimneys of a large-sized town. But Firgrove, Hill Difficulty, and the Happy Land all lay behind—far, far away!
CHAPTER X.
THE HAPPY LAND.
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy."
Wordsworth.
"To be good is to be happy; angels
Are happier than men because they're better."
Rowe.
"Now, please, Mrs. Joe, will you show Joan and me the nearest way to the place where you found us?" asked Darby in all good faith when they had finished their breakfast. It had been a most unusual one for them, and not much of a treat: the bread was dry, the bacon strong smelling, the bitter coffee guiltless of either cream or milk, and poor Joan made many a wry face in her efforts to get it down.