And now we rapidly descended63 the mountain side. The scenery was wilder and bolder than I was accustomed to. Our road skirted the edge of a great heathy moor64. The silvery light of the moon began to glimmer65, and we passed a gipsy bivouac with fires alight and caldrons hanging over them. It was the first I had seen. Two or three low tents; a couple of dark, withered66 crones, veritable witches; a graceful67 girl standing behind, gazing after us; and men in odd-shaped hats, with gaudy68 waistcoats and bright-coloured neck-handkerchiefs and gaitered legs, stood lazily in front. They had all a wild tawdry display of colour; and a group of alders69 in the rear made a background of shade for tents, fires, and figures.
I opened a front window of the chariot, and called to the postboys to stop. The groom70 from behind came to the window.
Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears by this time, and we were both highly interested, and I a little nervous, too, about our arrival and reception at Bartram. Some time, of course, was lost in this pleasant little parlour, before we found ourselves once more pursuing our way.
The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain road, ascending53 zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking54. I forget the name of the pretty little group of houses — it did not amount to a village — buried in trees, where we got our four horses and two postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the place where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some gingerbread, very curious to look upon, but quite uneatable.
The greater portion of the ascent55, when we were fairly upon the mountain, was accomplished at a walk, and at some particularly steep points we had to get out and go on foot. But this to me was quite delightful56. I had never scaled a mountain before, and the ferns and heath, the pure boisterous57 air, and above all the magnificent view of the rich country we were leaving behind, now gorgeous and misty58 in sunset tints, stretching in gentle undulations far beneath us, quite enchanted59 me.
We had just reached the summit when the sun went down. The low grounds at the other side were already lying in cold grey shadow, and I got the man who sat behind to point out as well as he could the site of Bartram–Haugh. But mist was gathering60 over all by this time. The filmy disk of the moon which was to light us on, so soon as twilight61 faded into night, hung high in the air. I tried to see the sable62 mass of wood which he described. But it was vain, and to acquire a clear idea of the place, as of its master, I must only wait that nearer view which an hour or two more would afford me.
But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing42 by the buttress43, and looked back at poor Knowl — the places we love and are leaving look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the finest view of the gabled old house, with its slanting44 meadow-lands and noble timber reposing45 in solemn groups — I gazed at the receding46 vision, and the tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was hidden from view by the intervening uplands.
I was relieved, and when we had made our next change of horses, and got into a country that was unknown to me, the new scenery and the sense of progress worked their accustomed effects on a young traveller who had lived a particularly secluded47 life, and I began to experience, on the whole, a not unpleasurable excitement.
Mary Quince and I, with the hopefulness of inexperienced travellers, began already to speculate about our proximity48 to Bartram–Haugh, and were sorely disappointed when we heard from the nondescript courier — more like a ostler than a servant, who sat behind in charge of us and the luggage, and represented my guardian’s special care — at nearly one o’clock, that we had still forty miles to go, a considerable portion of which was across the high Derbyshire mountains, before we reached Bartram–Haugh.
The fact was, we had driven at a pace accommodated rather to the convenience of the horses than to our impatience49; and finding, at the quaint50 little inn where we now halted, that we must wait for a nail or two in a loose shoe of one of our relay, we consulted, and being both hungry, agreed to beguile51 the time with an early dinner, which we enjoyed very sociably52 in a queer little parlour with a bow window, and commanding, with a little garden for foreground, a very pretty landscape.
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