Harry and Philip Inglis were rather different-looking boys to their cousin, for, stouter in build, they bore upon their good-tempered faces the brown marks made by many a summer’s sun. And now, upon this occasion, they were all impatience to get to the station to meet Cousin Fred, who was coming down to spend the Midsummer holidays. The visit had been long talked about, and now the boys were in a state of the greatest excitement lest any disappointment might take place.
“Oh! do drive faster, Sam,” said Harry, making a snatch at the reins; “I know he’ll be there first. Tiresome old thing, you! Why didn’t you start an hour sooner?”
“What for?” said Sam, grumbling, and holding tightly to the reins; “what was I to come an hour sooner for? Think I don’t know how long it takes to drive over to station?”
“But,” said Philip, from his donkey, “I’m sure we shall be late. There!” he continued, “I can hear the train now!”
“Nonsense!” said Sam. “Where’s the steam? Why, you can see the steam for two miles before the train gets in, and Dumps here could get in long before the train.”
But Philip was right, for just then the loud and shrill whistle of the engine was heard as it started again, after setting down one solitary little passenger in the shape of Fred Morris, who looked sadly disappointed to find no one there to receive him but Jem Barnes, the porter, who stared very hard at the young stranger from Lunnun.
Dumpling galloped, and Neddy went off at a double trot, upon hearing the railway-whistle, spinning along at such a rate that before Fred Morris had learned which path he was to take across the fields to go the shortest way to Squire Inglis’s, of the Grange, Hollowdell—and all of which information he was getting very slowly out of Jem Barnes—Harry had jumped out of the chaise. Philip leaped off his donkey, and they were one on each side of Fred, heartily shaking hands with him.
“I say, ain’t you our cousin?” said Harry, breathlessly.
“Our cousin from London, you know,” said Philip, “that was to come by this train?”
“My name is Morris,” said the traveller, rather pompously, “and I’m going on a visit to Mr Inglis’s at Hollowdell.”