Whatever the defects of the rank and file of the Verity family in
respect of liberal ideas, it can safely be asserted of all its members,
male and female, clerical and lay, alike, that they belonged to the
equestrian order. Hence it added considerably to Tom's recovered
self-complacency to find a smart two-wheel dog-cart awaiting him, drawn by
a remarkably well-shaped and well-groomed black horse. The coachman was
to match. Middle-aged, clean-shaven, his Napoleonic face set as a mask,
his undress livery of pepper-and-salt mixture soberly immaculate. He
touched his hat when our young gentleman appeared and mounted beside him;
the horse, meanwhile, shivering a little and showing the red of its
nostrils as the train, with strident whistlings, drew out of the station
bound westward to Stourmouth and Barryport.

Later the horse broke up the abiding inertia of Marychurch High Street,
by dancing as it passed the engine of a slowly ambulant thrashing
machine; and only settled fairly into its stride when the three-arched,
twelfth century stone bridge over the Arne was passed, and the
road--leaving the last scattered houses of the little town--turned south
and seaward skirting the shining expanse of The Haven and threading the
semi-amphibious hamlets of Horny Cross and Lampit.




CHAPTER III

THE DOUBTFULLY HARMONIOUS PARTS OF A WHOLE