r handkerchiefs and shouted greetings.
A little further on Mrs Linden and Easton's wife were standing at the
door to see them go by. In fact, the notes of the coachman's horn
alarmed most of the inhabitants, who crowded to their windows and doors
to gaze upon the dismal procession as it passed.

The mean streets of Windley were soon left far behind and they found
themselves journeying along a sunlit, winding road, bordered with
hedges of hawthorn, holly and briar, past rich, brown fields of
standing corn, shimmering with gleams of gold, past apple-orchards
where bending boughs were heavily loaded with mellow fruits exhaling
fragrant odours, through the cool shades of lofty avenues of venerable
oaks, whose overarched and interlacing branches formed a roof of green,
gilt and illuminated with quivering spots and shafts of sunlight that
filtered through the trembling leaves; over old mossy stone bridges,
spanning limpid streams that duplicated the blue sky and the fleecy
clouds; and then again, stretching away to the horizon on every side
over more fields, some rich with harvest, others filled with drowsing
cattle or with flocks of timid sheep that scampered away at the sound
of the passing carriages. Several times they saw merry little
companies of rabbits frisking gaily in and out of the hedges or in the
fields beside the sheep and cattle. At intervals, away in the
distance, nestling in the hollows or amid sheltering trees, groups of
farm buildings and stacks of hay; and further on, the square ivy-clad
tower of an ancient church, or perhaps a solitary windmill with its
revolving sails alternately flashing and darkening in the rays of the
sun. Past thatched wayside cottages whose inhabitants came out to wave
their hands in friendly greeting. Past groups of sunburnt,
golden-haired children who climbed on fences and five-barred gates, and
waved their hats and cheered, or ran behind the brakes for the pennies
the men threw down to them.

From time to time the men in the brakes made half-hearted attempts at
singing, but it never came to much, because most of them were too
hungry and miserable. They had not had time to take any dinner and
would not have taken any even if they had the time, for they wished to
reserve their appetites for the banquet at the Queen Elizabeth, which
they expected to reach about half past three. However, they cheered up
a little after the first halt--at the Blue Lion, where most of them got
d