They knew too little of cities to have had beforehand any idea of what the overwhelming rush and roar would be, and what slight straws they would feel themselves upon the current. If they had been quite ordinary children, they might well have been frightened. But they were not ordinary children, little as they were aware of that important factor in their young lives. They were awed for this first moment, but, somehow, they were fascinated as much as they were awed, while they stood for a brief breathing-space looking on. They did not know—no child of their ages can possibly know such things of him or herself—that Nature had made them of the metal out of which she moulds strong things and great ones. As they had not comprehended the restless sense of wrong and misery the careless, unlearning, and ungrowing life in Aunt Matilda’s world filled them with, so they did not understand that, because they had been born creatures who belong to the great moving, working, venturing world, they were not afraid of it, and felt their first young face-to-face encounter with it a thing which thrilled them with an exultant emotion they could not have explained.
“This is not Aunt Matilda’s world,” said Rob. “It—I believe it is ours, Meg. Don’t you?”
Meg was staring with entranced eyes at the passing multitude.
“‘More pilgrims are come to town,’” she said, quoting the “Pilgrim’s Progress” with a far-off look in her intense little black-browed face. “You remember what it said, Rob, ‘Here also all the noise of them that walked in the streets was, More pilgrims are come to town.’ Oh, isn’t it like it!”
It was. And the exaltation and thrill of it got into their young blood and made them feel as if they walked on air, and that every passing human thing meant, somehow, life and strength to them.
Their appetites were sharpened by the morning air, and they consulted as to what their breakfast should be. They had no money to spend at restaurants, and every penny must be weighed and calculated.
“Let’s walk on,” said Meg, “until we see a bakery that looks as if it was kept by poor people. Then we can buy some bread, and eat it with our eggs somewhere.”
“All right,” said Robin.
They marched boldly on. The crowd jostled them, and there was so much noise that they could hardly hear each other speak; but ah! how the sun shone, and how the pennons fluttered and streamed on every side, and how excited and full of living the people’s faces looked! It seemed splendid, only to be alive in such a world on such a morning. The sense of the practical which had suggested that they should go to a small place led them into the side streets. They passed all the big shops without a glance, but at last Meg stooped before a small one.
“There’s a woman in there,” she said; “I just saw her for a minute. She has a nice face. She looked as if she might be good-natured. Let’s go in there, Robin. It’s quite a small place.”