ffodils and polyanthus, groups of
little girls and babies, in flopping sunbonnets and scanty lilac
pinafores, stared back at the passing carriage, and then bobbed the
accustomed curtsy. In the said groups were no boys, save of infant
years. The boys were away shepherding, or to plough, or bird-minding.
For as yet education was free indeed--in the sense that you were free
to take it, or leave it, as suited your pocket and your fancy.

Richard stared too at the pleasant, furze-dotted commons, spinning away
to right and left as the horses trotted sharply onward--commons whereon
meditative donkeys endured rather than enjoyed existence, after the
manner of their kind; and prodigiously large families of yellow-gray
goslings streeled after the flocks of white geese, across spaces of
fresh sprung grass around shallow ponds, in which the blue and dapple
of the sky was reflected. He stared at Sandyfield village too--a
straight street of detached houses, very diverse in colour and in
shape, standing back, for the most part, amid small orchards and
gardens that slope gently up from the brook, which last, backed, here
by a row of fine elms, there by one of Lombardy poplars, borders the
road. Three or four shops, modest in size as they are ambitious in the
variety of objects offered for sale in them, advance their windows
boldly. So does the yellow-washed inn, the Calmady arms displayed upon
its swinging sign-board. A miller's tented waggon, all powdery with
flour, and its team of six horses, brave with brass harness and bells,
a timber-carriage, and a couple of spring-carts, were drawn up on the
half-moon of gravel before the porch; while, from out the open door,
came a sound of voices and odour of many pipes and much stale beer.

And Richard had uninterrupted leisure to bestow on all this seeing, for
his companion, Colonel Ormiston, was preoccupied and silent. Once or
twice he looked down at the boy as though suddenly remembering his
presence and inquired if he was "all right." But it was not until they
had crossed the long, white-railed bridge, at the end of Sandyfield
street--which spans not only the little brown river overhung by
black-stemmed alders, but a bit of marsh, reminiscent of the ancient
ford, lush with water grasses, beds of king-cups, and broad-leaved
docks--not until then did Colonel Ormiston make sustained effort at
conversation. Beyond the bridge the road forks.

"Left to Newlands, isn't it?" he asked sharply.