the reins; "I
know he'll be there first. Tiresome old thing, you! Why didn't you
start an hour sooner?"

"What for?" said Sam, grumbling, and holding tightly to the reins; "what
was I to come an hour sooner for? Think I don't know how long it takes
to drive over to station?"

"But," said Philip, from his donkey, "I'm sure we shall be late.
There!" he continued, "I can hear the train now!"

"Nonsense!" said Sam. "Where's the steam? Why, you can see the steam
for two miles before the train gets in, and Dumps here could get in long
before the train."

But Philip was right, for just then the loud and shrill whistle of the
engine was heard as it started again, after setting down one solitary
little passenger in the shape of Fred Morris, who looked sadly
disappointed to find no one there to receive him but Jem Barnes, the
porter, who stared very hard at the young stranger from Lunnun.

Dumpling galloped, and Neddy went off at a double trot, upon hearing the
railway-whistle, spinning along at such a rate that before Fred Morris
had learned which path he was to take across the fields to go the
shortest way to Squire Inglis's, of the Grange, Hollowdell--and all of
which information he was getting very slowly out of Jem Barnes--Harry
had jumped out of the chaise. Philip leaped off his donkey, and they
were one on each side of Fred, heartily shaking hands with him.

"I say, ain't you our cousin?" said Harry, breathlessly.

"Our cousin from London, you know," said Philip, "that was to come by
this train?"

"My name is Morris," said the traveller, rather pompously, "and I'm
going on a visit to Mr Inglis's at Hollowdell."

"Yes, to be sure!" said Harry. "You're Cousin Fred, and I'm Harry, and
that's Phil. Come along into the chaise. Here Sam--Jem! bring the box
and let's be off. But I say, Fred, isn't it hot?"

Fred replied that it was, seeming hardly to know what to make of the
rough, hearty manners of his cousins, and he looked, if anything, rather
disappointed when he was met by the rough grin of Sam, who was of
anything but a smooth exterior, and altogether a very different man to
his father's well-brushed livery-servant, who had seen him safely off to
the station in the morning.

"I've come," said Fred at last, when they were fairly started with
Philip and Fred in the chaise, and Harry this time upon the donkey
bringing up the rear--"I've come because Papa said you would not like it
if I did not; but I'd