became considerately blind for the occasion, as
well as deaf. A quarter of an hour after the carriage left the major's
cottage, the poor old soul, reposing on snug cushions, and fanned by a
fine summer air, fell peaceably asleep. Allan made love, and Miss Milroy
sanctioned the manufacture of that occasionally precious article of
human commerce, sublimely indifferent on both sides to a solemn bass
accompaniment on two notes, played by the curate's mother's unsuspecting
nose. The only interruption to the love-making (the snoring, being a
thing more grave and permanent in its nature, was not interrupted at
all) came at intervals from the carriage ahead. Not satisfied with
having the major's Roman encampment and the curate's Infant Schools on
his mind, Pedgift Junior rose erect from time to time in his place, and,
respectfully hailing the hindmost vehicle, directed Allan's attention,
in a shrill tenor voice, and with an excellent choice of language,
to objects of interest on the road. The only way to quiet him was to
answer, which Allan invariably did by shouting back, "Yes, beautiful,"
upon which young Pedgift disappeared again in the recesses of the
leading carriage, and took up the Romans and the Infants where he had
left them last.

The scene through which the picnic party was now passing merited far
more attention than it received either from Allan or Allan's friends.

An hour's steady driving from the major's cottage had taken young
Armadale and his guests beyond the limits of Midwinter's solitary walk,
and was now bringing them nearer and nearer to one of the strangest and
loveliest aspects of nature which the inland landscape, not of Norfolk
only, but of all England, can show. Little by little the face of the
country began to change as the carriages approached the remote and
lonely district of the Broads. The wheat fields and turnip fields became
perceptibly fewer, and the fat green grazing grounds on either side grew
wider and wider in their smooth and sweeping range. Heaps of dry rushes
and reeds, laid up for the basket-maker and the thatcher, began to
appear at the road-side. The old gabled cottages of the early part of
the drive dwindled and disappeared, and huts with mud walls rose in
their place. With the ancient church towers and the wind and water
mills, which had hitherto been the only lofty objects seen over the
low marshy flat, there now rose all round the horizon, gliding slow and
distant behind fring