fields where the cattle were clustering in sheltered corners, a monotonous
expanse, crossed by ice-bound dykes that looked black as ink, save where
the last rays of the setting sun touched their iron hue with blood-red
splashes. Pollard willows indicated the edge of one field, gaunt poplars
marked the boundary of another, alike leafless and unbeautiful, standing
darkly out against the dim grey sky. Night was hastening towards the
travellers, narrowing and blotting out that level landscape, field, dyke,
and leafless wood.

Sir John put his head out of the coach window, and looked anxiously along
the straight road, peering through the shades of evening in the hope of
seeing the crocketed spires and fair cupolas of Louvain in the distance.
But he could see nothing save a waste of level pastures and the gathering
darkness. Not a light anywhere, not a sign of human habitation.

Useless to gaze any longer into the impenetrable night. The traveller leant
back into a corner of the carriage with folded arms, and, with a deep sigh,
composed himself for slumber. He had slept but little for the last week.
The passage from Harwich to Ostend in a fishing-smack had been a perilous
transit, prolonged by adverse winds. Sleep had been impossible on board
that wretched craft; and the land journey had been fraught with vexation
and delays of all kinds--stupidity of postillions, dearth of horseflesh,
badness of the roads--all things that can vex and hinder.

Sir John's travelling companion, a small child in a cloak and hood, crept
closer to him in the darkness, nestled up against his elbow, and pushed her
little cold hand into his leathern glove.

"You are crying again, father," she said, full of pity. "You were crying
last night. Do you always cry when it grows dark?"