The drive was pleasant, down-hill. The road stretched before them like satin with the dust of it, and many spacious groups of trees lifted their motionless shapes against the sky-line of the tall land and the stars twinkling above it. Specks of light in houses reposed like glow worms in the deep shades of the valley and up the acclivities, but the river streamed in blackness, and the lamps of a small town past the railway station were lost behind the bend. Hardy stared at his father's house as they drove past, always in darkness on this side, but he knew there would be lights in the windows which overlooked the grounds that sank toward the river. The house Captain Armstrong lived in was two miles further on round the corner, and made one of about a dozen little villas and cottages, including a church and a public-house. It was a very small cottage, thatched; but its sun-bright windows, its handsome door and brass knocker--the taste, in short of the man who had built it in years gone by--made it very fit for the occupation of a gentleman. It was sunk deep in a broad piece of garden land, and the apple-trees, whose boughs were laden, scented the still night air refreshingly. "Here we be," said Bax, drawing up, and the sailor sprang off the cart, and walked down the path to the door with the brass knocker. He hammered briskly, and tugged at a metal knob which shivered a little bell into ecstasies of alarm. A small dog barked shrilly with terror and hate, and in a minute the door was opened by a servant, past whom the small dog fled, and tried to marry his teeth in Hardy's right boot. A kick rushed the little beast back into the passage, and Hardy said to the servant, "I have called for Miss Armstrong's trunk." "Oh, indeed," she said, looking behind her. "Yes, indeed," he exclaimed. "I'm in a hurry. I've six miles to go. Is Captain Armstrong in?" "No," was the answer, and as the servant spoke a door on the right of the passage was thrown open, and the figure of a stout woman stood between Hardy and the flame of the oil-float which illuminated the passage at the extremity. "Who is it? and what does he want?" said the stout figure, approaching by two or three paces. "I am Mr. Hardy, son of your husband's doctor," was the reply, "and I have called for Miss Armstrong's trunk. It stands ready corded in her bedroom, and I am in a hurry." "Where is Miss Armstrong going?" said the stout figure, who was indeed Mrs. Armstrong. "To the ends of the earth to escape _you_," he answered. "Bax," he roared, "fling your reins over the gate-post, and come and lend me a hand to ship the box in your cart."