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CHAPTER LIX

Esther’s Narrative

It was three o’clock in the morning when the houses out-
side London did at last begin to exclude the country and to
close us in with streets. We had made our way along roads
in a far worse condition than when we had traversed them
by daylight, both the fall and the thaw having lasted ever
since; but the energy of my companion never slackened. It
had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than the hors-
es in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had
stopped exhausted halfway up hills, they had been driven
through streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down
and become entangled with the harness; but he and his little
lantern had been always ready, and when the mishap was
set right, I had never heard any variation in his cool, ‘Get
on, my lads!’
The steadiness and confidence with which he had di-
rected our journey back I could not account for. Never
wavering, he never even stopped to make an inquiry until
we were within a few miles of London. A very few words,
here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we
came, at between three and four o’clock in the morning,

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