Then he hurried them all off into the buggies, five in one and three
in the other. There was a twenty-five-mile drive before them yet.

"When did you have anything to eat last?" he asked; the depressed
looks of the children were making him quite unhappy. "Mother has
sent you biscuits and sandwiches, but we, can't get coffee or
anything hot till we get home."

Nine o'clock, Esther told him, at Newcastle, but it was so boiling
hot they had had to leave most of it in their cups and scramble into
the train again. The horses were whipped up; and flew over the
muddy roads at a pace that Pip, despite his weariness, could not but
admire.

But it was a very damp, miserable drive, and the General wept with
hardly a break from start to finish, greatly to Esther's vexation,
for it was his first introduction to his grandfather.

At last, when everyone was beginning to feel the very end of patience
had come, a high white gate broke the monotony of dripping wet
fences.

"Home!" Esther said joyfully. She jumped the General up and down on
her knee.

"Little Boy Blue, Mum fell off that gate when she was three," said she,
looking at it affectionately as Pip swung it open.

Splash through the rain again; the wheels went softly now, for the