Such a crushed, dull-eyed,
subdued-looking eight they were as they tumbled out on the Curlewis
platform when five o'clock came. Judy coughed at the wet, early,
air, and was hurried into the waiting-room and wrapped in a rug.
Then the train tossed out their, trunks and portmanteaux and rushed on
again, leaving them desolate and miserable, looking after it, for it
seemed no one had come to meet them.
The sound of wet wheels slushing through puddles, the crack of a whip,
the even falling of horses' feet, and they were all outside again,
looking beyond the white railway palings to the road.
There were a big, covered waggonette driven by a wide yellow oil-skin
with a man somewhere in its interior, and a high buggy, from which an
immensely tall man was climbing.
"Father!"
Esther rushed out into the rain. She put her arms round the dripping
mackintosh and clung fast to it for a minute or two. Perhaps that is
what made her cheeks and eyes so wet and shining.
"Little girl--little Esther child!" he said, and almost lifted her
off the ground as he kissed her, tall though Meg considered her.
Then he hurried them all off into the buggies, five in one and three
in the other.
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