The station at Caistorholm seemed to consist of a platform and a wooden waiting-room, a porter’s-room, and a ticket-office. An aged station-master received his portmanteau, and told him a carriage from the Vicarage was waiting outside for a gent from Yorkshire. A steep flight of wooden steps led from the top of the embankment, on which the station stood, to the long, straight, chalky road outside—a Roman road Edward learned later, straight as an arrow’s flight, running mile after mile in undeviating line—“the shortest distance between two extreme points,” ruminated Edward. A neat dogcart was at the foot of the steps, a natty groom stood at the head of the mettlesome cob; the aged porter, descending the steps with difficulty, placed Edward’s portmanteau at the back of the phaeton, received a more liberal tip, as he reflected subsequently, than he was accustomed to receive from visitors to the Vicarage, and the mare, at a word, jumped to the collar, and the carriage bowled away. On each side the road a broad, unfenced ditch ran between the highway and the hedgerows that fenced the spreading acres of potatoes, cabbage, and turnip that spread on either side, far as the eye could reach, in one vast expanse of weary level, unbroken save by an occasional windmill, whose great wheels turned slowly with many a creak and groan in the warm autumn air. “These roads must be dangerous on a dark night,” suggested Beaumont, by way of breaking a silence that was becoming irksome. “Not when you knows the road, sir.” “The farmers hereabout must be a remarkably temperate sort of men!” “’Taint the farmers, sir, it’s the hosses. Give a hoss his head if you be o’ercome yourself, sir, an’ he’ll bring you home all right, never fear. That’s my advice.” “I don’t drive myself,” said Edward, smiling, “when I do I’ll remember your advice. Though I’m more by way of giving advice than taking it.” “Doctor Gummidge, sir, the young ’un, he hasn’t been in these parts above ten year or so. He take a deal aboard, he do, to be sure, an’ he never had a spill yet that I heerd tell on. If you can’t trust a hoss, sir, why, sell him or shoot him, that’s what I say. That’s the Vicarage, sir, between the trees. If you’ll hold the reins, I’ll open the gates of the drive. Woa, lass.”