The Coachmaster 



pleasure, that there was a certain charm hi 

 it, in each season of the year as it came 

 round ; and especially to those who made 

 the down journey. Yes, I can give you 

 my word, as that of a country creature shut 

 up for many hours daily in the dingy office 

 of an engraver in a desolate London street, 

 that it was pleasant enough to leave the 

 town in the early spring, of whose coming 

 in a London square or a city court only 

 a few smutty lilac bushes and a solitary 

 plane-tree had given dubious promise ; to 

 rattle away through the streets and out 

 into the roads where the bricks and mortar 

 dwindled with every yard we covered, and 

 the greening hawthorn hedges sprang up 

 in their stead by the wayside, breaking out 

 here and there into blackthorn with its 

 million stars or the willow palm in silver 

 and gold ; while in the fields on the further 

 side of the hedge the clumsy lambs sucked 

 their mothers greedily, or made merry in 

 their own inconsequent fashion ; and we 

 knew that a skvlark must be sino-inor over 

 head, if we could but hear him throu^-h 

 the noise of the wheels ; and all this in 

 an air that ofrew momentlv liehter than 

 laughter, and gladding as wine. Or later 

 in the year, when all the world was deep 

 in summer, and the dust we raised whitened 

 55 



