Michael Snowdon
was anxious that Jane should not regard with the carelessness of
familiarity those desolate tracts from which they were escaping. In
Bethnal Green he directed her attention with a whispered word to the
view from each window, and Jane had learnt well to understand him.
But, the lesson over, it was none of his purpose to spoil her
natural mood of holiday. Sidney sat opposite her, and as often as
their eyes met a smile of contentment answered on either's face.
They alighted at Chelmsford, and were met by the farmer in whose
house they were going to lodge, a stolid, good-natured fellow named
Pammenter, with red, leathery cheeks, and a corkscrew curl of black
hair coming forward on each temple. His trap was waiting, and in a
few minutes they started on the drive to Danbury. The distance is
about five miles, and, until Danbury Hill is reached, the
countryside has no point of interest to distinguish it from any
other representative bit of rural Essex. It is merely one of those
quiet corners of flat, homely England, where man and beast seem on
good terms with each other, where all green things grow in
abundance, where from of old tilth and pasture-land are humbly
observant of seasons and alternations, where the brown roads are
familiar only with the tread of the labourer, with the light wheel
of the farmer's gig, or the rumbling of the solid warn.
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