bags, and older men, collarless and perspiring, were shifting heavy
children from one arm to the other, and keeping a haggard eye on the
scattered members of their families.

At last the train rumbled in, and engulfed the waiting multitude. Harney
swept Charity up on to the first car and they captured a bench for
two, and sat in happy isolation while the train swayed and roared along
through rich fields and languid tree-clumps. The haze of the morning
had become a sort of clear tremor over everything, like the colourless
vibration about a flame; and the opulent landscape seemed to droop under
it. But to Charity the heat was a stimulant: it enveloped the whole
world in the same glow that burned at her heart. Now and then a lurch of
the train flung her against Harney, and through her thin muslin she felt
the touch of his sleeve. She steadied herself, their eyes met, and the
flaming breath of the day seemed to enclose them.

The train roared into the Nettleton station, the descending mob caught
them on its tide, and they were swept out into a vague dusty square
thronged with seedy "hacks" and long curtained omnibuses drawn by horses
with tasselled fly-nets over their withers, who stood swinging their
depressed heads drearily from side to side.

A mob of 'bus and hack drivers were shouting "To the Eagle House,"
"To the Washington House," "This way to the Lake," "Just starting for
Greytop;" and through their yells came the popping of fire-crackers,
the explosion of torpedoes, the banging of toy-guns, and the crash of
a firemen's band trying to play the Merry Widow while they were being
packed into a waggonette streaming with bunting.

The ramshackle wooden hotels about the square were all hung with flags