They found their bags, and there were a great many of them; Miss Ronder,
having seen that they were all there and that there was no nonsense about
the porter, moved off to the barrier followed by her nephew.

As they came into the station square, all smelling of hay and the rain,
the deluge slowly withdrew its forces, recalling them gradually so that
the drops whispered now, patter-patter--pit-pat. A pigeon hovered down and
pecked at the cobbles. Faint colour threaded the thick blotting-paper
grey.

Old Fawcett himself had come to the station to meet them. Why had he felt
it to be an occasion? God only knows. A new Canon was nothing to him. He
very seldom now, being over eighty, with a strange "wormy" pain in his
left ear, took his horses out himself. He saved his money and counted it
over by his fireside to see that his old woman didn't get any of it. He
hated his old woman, and in a vaguely superstitious, thoroughly Glebeshire
fashion half-believed that she had cast a spell over him and was really
responsible for his "wormy" ear.

Why had he come? He didn't himself know. Perhaps Ronder was going to be of
importance in the place, he had come from London and they all had money in
London. He licked his purple protruding lips greedily as he saw the
generous man. Yes, kindly and generous he looked....

They got into the musty cab and rattled away over the cobbles.

"I hope Mrs. Clay got the telegram all right." Miss Ronder's thin bosom
was a little agitated beneath its white waistcoat. "You'll never forgive
me if things aren't looking as though we'd lived in the place for months."