But an exclamation from Kathie—'Oh, Neville! I shall die if we go on like this. It does shake me, and knock me about so. I'm all black and blue already!'—made him change.
'I'm so sorry, Kathie,' he repeated. 'Stay; is there nothing I can put on the seat to make it softer? Or supposing you sit right down among the sacks? I do think that would be better.'
It did seem so for a little while. But, after all, there was not much need for the precautions. Scarcely was Kathie settled among the sacks when the jogging and rattling came to an untimely end, and the slow grind and creak began again. Another hill, doubtless. Alas! it was so—another and yet another; the bits of level road seemed so few and far between, that long before the end of the journey Kathie would have borne the jolts and the bruises with philosophy, just for the sake of feeling they were getting over the ground.
It grew into a sort of nightmare—the still pouring rain, the darkness, just rendered more visible by the faint flicker from the lantern which John Williams had now lighted, and which hung from the top of the van in front, the creaking and groaning of the wheels, the queer sounds Williams addressed from time to time to his horse—it came to seem at last to the children, as they every now and then fell asleep in a miserable half-awake kind of way, only to start up again giddy and confused—it came to seem as if they had always been grinding along like that, and as if it would never come to an end.
'Neville,' whispered Kathie more than once,—a very subdued Kathie now, far too worn out to be cross even,—'Neville, I feel as if I should die before we get there.'
HE SAT DOWN ON THE FLOOR OF THE CART, AND TOOK KATHIE HALF INTO HIS ARMS.
Neville did all he could. He sat down on the floor of the cart, and took Kathie half into his arms, so that she could lean her head on his shoulder and not be so bumped, for every now and then they would go quickly for a few minutes, and Kathie was too weak and stiff now to be able to hold on to anything. In this way she managed to get a little sleep, and at last, at last, John Williams grunted out from the front of the van,
'Close to, now, master. I've come round by Ty-gwyn a-purpose, afore going through the village.'