“Don’t the houses look queer!” Jim said. “We’ve been travelling for ever so long, and I haven’t seen a single verandah!”
Gradually, as the day wore on, the rain drifted up in a grey cloud, blotting out all the cold landscape. It blew aside now and then, and showed empty fields, divided by bare hedges; an emptiness that puzzled the Australians, until they realised that they were in a country where all cattle must be housed in winter. The fields, too, were astonishing: quaint, irregularly shaped little patches, tiny beside their memories of the wide paddocks of their own big land. The whole country looked like a chessboard to their unaccustomed eyes; the great houses, among their leafless trees, inexpressibly gaunt and bleak.
Then, so soon after luncheon that they exclaimed in astonishment, darkness came down and electric lights flashed on throughout the train. The conductor came in to pull all blinds down carefully.
“War regulations, sir,” he said in answer to Mr. Linton. “No trains allowed to travel showin’ lights now, for fear of an attack by aircraft—and goin’ over bridges they turns the lights off altogether. Makes travellin’ dull, sir.”
“It sounds as though it should make it exciting,” said Mr. Linton.
“Might, if the aeroplanes came, sir,” said the conductor, laconically. “They do say them Zeppelins is goin’ to shake things up in England. But they ain’t come yet, an’ England ain’t shook up. Might be as well if she wur.” He went on his mission of darkness.
The slow day drew to a close. The train made few stoppages, and travelled swiftly; but it was late before the long journey across England was over, and they began to slacken down. Peering out, Norah and the boys saw a dimly-lit mass of houses, so solid a mass, so far-reaching, that they were almost terrifying. They were gaunt houses, tall and grey, crowned with grimy chimney-pots; for miles they ran through them, finding never a break in their close-packed squares. Then came more lights and a grinding of brakes as they drew up; outside the train, raucous voices of porters.
“Paddington! Paddington!”
“London at last!” said Mr. Linton.
Presently they were packed into a taxi, whizzing along through dim streets. The taxi-lights were darkened; there were few electric lights, and all the upper parts of their glass globes had been blackened, so that hostile aircraft, flying overhead, should find no guiding beams. Lamps in shop windows were carefully shaded.