Mr. Fawcett was just mounting into his high-wheeled, spidery dogcart,
with his little bit of blood between the shafts. He waved his whip and
fell in behind the carriage. They overtook Purvis, the tomato-faced
publican, upon the road, with his wife in her Sunday bonnet. They also
dropped into the procession, and then, as they traversed the seven miles
of the high road to Croxley, their two-horsed, rosetted carriage became
gradually the nucleus of a comet with a loosely radiating tail.
From every side-road came the miners' carts, the humble, ramshackle
traps, black and bulging, with their loads of noisy, foul-tongued,
open-hearted partisans. They trailed for a long quarter of a mile
behind them--cracking, whipping, shouting, galloping, swearing.
Horsemen and runners were mixed with the vehicles. And then suddenly a
squad of the Sheffield Yeomanry, who were having their annual training
in those parts, clattered and jingled out of a field, and rode as an
escort to the carriage. Through the dust-clouds round him Montgomery
saw the gleaming brass helmets, the bright coats, and the tossing heads
of the chargers, the delighted brown faces of the troopers. It was more
dream-like than ever.
And then, as they approached the monstrous, uncouth line of
bottle-shaped buildings which marked the smelting-works of Croxley,
their long, writhing snake of dust was headed off by another but longer
one which wound across their path.
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