II.
The first building passed by the westerly road as it descends into
Tregarrick is a sombre pile of some eminence, having a gateway and
lodge before it, and a high encircling wall. The sun lay warm on its
long roof, and the slates flashed gaily there, as Farmer Lear came
over the knap of the hill and looked down on it. He withdrew his eyes
nervously to glance at the old couple beside him. At the same moment
he reined up his dun-coloured mare.
"I reckoned," he said timidly, "I reckoned you'd be for stopping
hereabouts an' getting down. You'd think it more seemly--that's what I
reckoned: an' 'tis down-hill now all the way."
For ten seconds and more neither the man nor the woman gave a sign of
having heard him. The spring-cart's oscillatory motion seemed to have
entered into their spinal joints; and now that they had come to
a halt, their heads continued to wag forward and back as they
contemplated the haze of smoke spread, like a blue scarf over the
town, and the one long slate roof that rose from it as if to meet
them. At length the old woman spoke, and with some viciousness, though
her face remained as blank as the Workhouse door.
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