| 328 | 329 | 330 | 331 | 332 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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spent a night. They passed a large church; and in the streets were a
number of old houses, built of a kind of earth or plaster, crossed and
re-crossed in a great many directions with black beams, which gave
them a remarkable and very ancient look. The doors, too, were arched
and low, some with oaken portals and quaint benches, where the
former inhabitants had sat on summer evenings. The windows were
latticed in little diamond panes, that seemed to wink and blink upon
the passengers as if they were dim of sight. They had long since got
clear of the smoke and furnaces, except in one or two solitary
instances, where a factory planted among fields withered the space
about it, like a burning mountain. When they had passed through this
town, they entered again upon the country, and began to draw near
their place of destination.
It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon
the road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity, but
that the schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles of his
village, had a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new clerk, and was
unwilling to make his entry in dusty shoes, and travel-disordered
dress. It was a fine, clear, autumn morning, when they came upon the
scene of his promotion, and stopped to contemplate its beauties.
'See - here's the church!' cried the delighted schoolmaster in a low
voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the school- house, I'll be
sworn. Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this beautiful place!'
They admired everything - the old grey porch, the mullioned windows,
the venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard, the ancient
tower, the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs of cottage,
barn, and homestead, peeping from among the trees; the stream that
rippled by the distant water-mill; the blue Welsh mountains far away.
It was for such a spot the child had wearied in the dense, dark,
miserable haunts of labour. Upon her bed of ashes, and amidst the
squalid horrors through which they had forced their way, visions of
such scenes - beautiful indeed, but not more beautiful than this sweet
reality - had been always present to her mind. They had seemed to
melt into a dim and airy distance, as the prospect of ever beholding
them again grew fainter; but, as they receded, she had loved and
panted for them more.
'I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,' said the
schoolmaster, at length breaking the silence into which they had
fallen in their gladness. 'I have a letter to present, and inquiries to
make, you know. Where shall I take you? To the little inn yonder?'
'
Let us wait here,' rejoined Nell. 'The gate is open. We will sit in the
church porch till you come back.'
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