It was hardly more than a black speck on the white road when he first
saw it, and then he lost sight of it as it descended into the valley,
and he heard it rattle and jingle before he got sight of it again; but
when he was sure of it, he ran to the house, and you might have heard
Lucy's name from the very cellar to the roof.
Emily was with Lucy in their little room, and she was holding her
gloves whilst Lucy tied her bonnet, and she was talking over the things
that were to be bought, when their brother's voice came up the stairs
as loud and sharp as if a stage-coach was coming, which would not wait
one moment for those who were going.
"I hope we shall not get into a scrape to-day," said Emily: "Henry has
forgotten the day when mamma and papa went out, and we behaved so ill;
what can we do to keep ourselves out of mischief?"
Lucy had no time to answer, for Henry was at the door, and there was
such a rub-a-dub-dub upon it that her voice could not have been heard.
At the same minute the hack-chaise had come jingling up to the gate,
and Mrs. Goodriche was looking out with her pleasant smiling face.
John, too, had brought the horse to the gate, and everybody who
belonged to the house was soon out upon the grass-plot; the dog was
there, and quite as set up as Henry himself; and Betty came too, though
nobody knew why. Mrs. Fairchild got in first, and then Lucy; and
everybody said good-bye as if those who were going were not to come
back for a month; and the post-boy cracked his whip, and Mr. Fairchild
mounted his horse, and away they went.
Emily and Henry watched them till the turn of the road prevented them
from seeing them any longer; and then Henry said:
"Let us run to the chesnut-trees at the top of the round hill, and then
we shall be able to see the carriage again going up on the other side;
I saw it come down from Mrs. Goodriche's."
"Stay but one moment," said Emily, and she ran upstairs, put on her
bonnet and tippet, and was down again in one minute, with her doll on
her arm and a little book in her hand.
"Come, come," said Henry, and away they ran along a narrow path, among
the shrubs in the garden, out at a little gate, and up the green slope.
They were very soon at the top of the small hill, and under the shade
of the chesnut-trees. They passed through the grove to the side which
was farthest from their house, and then they sat down on the dry and
bare root of one of the trees.
For a minute or more they could not see the carriage, because it was
down in the valley beneath them, and the road there was much shaded by
willows and wych-elms and other trees that love the neighbourhood of
water, for the brook which turned the mill was down there. But when the
carriage began to go up on the other side, they saw it quite plain;
there was the post-boy in his yellow jacket, jogging up and down on his
saddle, and Mr. Fairchild sometimes a little before and sometimes a
little behind the carriage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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