At last, after a journey of about an hour and a half, the train stopped at Russetdeane.
It was a very lonely station indeed, quite primitive in its arrangements, and surrounded on every side by green hills and white quarries of chalk. An infirm porter and a melancholy station-master officiated on the platform, but when Bradley alighted, valise in hand, who should step smilingly up to him but Alma, prettily attired in a quiet country costume, and rosy with the sweet country air.
The train steamed away; porter and station-master standing stone still, and watching it till the last faint glimpse of it faded in the distance; then they looked at each other, seemed to awake from a trance, and slowly approached the solitary passenger and his companion.
‘Going to Russetdeane, measter?’ demanded the porter, wheezily, while the station-master looked on from the lofty heights of his superior position.
Bradley nodded, and handed over his valise.
‘I have a fly outside the station,’ explained Alma; and passing round the platform and over a wooden foot-bridge, to platform and offices on the other side, they found the fly in question—an antique structure of the postchaise species, drawn by two ill-groomed horses, a white and a roan, and driven by a preternaturally old boy of sixteen or seventeen.
‘At what hour does the next down train pass to Newhaven?’ asked Bradley, as he tipped the porter, and took his seat by Alma’s side.
‘The down-train, measter?’ repeated the old man. ‘There be one at three, and another at five. Be you a-going on?’
Bradley nodded, and the fly drove slowly away along the country road. The back of the boy’s head was just visible over the front part of the vehicle, which was vast and deep; so Bradley’s arm stole round his companion’s waist, and they exchanged an affectionate kiss.
‘I have the licence in my pocket, dearest,’ he whispered. ‘Is all arranged?’