"A bit stiffer in the joints, and maybe a bit sourer," was the answer.
Then the man's wrinkled face relaxed. "I'm main glad to see thee, Mr.
Wallace. Master wad have come, only he'd t' gan t' Manchester suddenly."

Vane helped him to place their baggage into the trap and then bade him
sit behind; and as he gathered up the reins, he glanced at the horse and
harness. The one did not show the breeding of the gray he remembered,
and there was no doubt that the other was rather the worse for wear.
They set off down the descending road, which wound, unconfined, through
the heather, where the raindrops sparkled like diamonds. Farther down,
they ran in between rough limestone walls with gleaming spar in them,
smothered here and there in trailing brambles and clumps of fern, while
the streams that poured out from black gaps in the peat and flowed
beside the road flashed with coppery gold in the evening light. It was
growing brighter ahead of them, though inky clouds still clung to the
moors behind.

By and by, ragged hedges, rent and twisted by the winds, climbed up to
meet them, and, clattering down between the straggling greenery, they
crossed a river sparkling over banks of gravel. After that, there was a
climb, for the country rolled in ridge and valley, and the crags ahead,
growing nearer, rose in more rugged grandeur against the paling glow.
Carroll gazed about him in open appreciation as they drove.

"This little compact country is really wonderful, in its way!" he
exclaimed. "There's so much squeezed into it, even leaving out your
towns. Parts of it are like Ontario---the southern strip I mean--with the
plow-land, orchards and homesteads sprinkled among the woods and rolling
ground. Then your Midlands are like the prairie, only that they're
greener--there's the same sweep of grass and the same sweep of sky, and