Now it was very pleasant for me to ride, as I did a good deal, with my Cousin Dorothy; for her father, for a great part, rode with the men and cracked stories with them.  For journeying with a person sets up a great deal of intimacy; and acquaintance progresses at least as swiftly as the journey itself.  She spoke to me very freely of her father, though never as a daughter should not; and told me how distressed she was sometimes at the quantity of ale and strong waters that he drank.  She told me also how seldom it was that a Catholic could hear mass at Hare Street:  sometimes, she said, a priest would lie there, and say mass in the attic; but not very often; and sometimes if a priest were in the neighbourhood they would ride over and hear mass wherever he happened to be.  The house, she said, lay near upon the road, so that they would hear a good deal of news in this way.  But she told me nothing of another matter—­for indeed she could not—­which distressed her; though I presently guessed it for myself, as will appear in the course of this tale.

My horse, Peter (as I had named him after the Apostle when I bought him at Dover), was pretty weary as we came in sight of the church of Hormead Parva; for I had given him plenty to do while I was in London; and he stumbled three or four times.

“We are nearly home,” said my Cousin Dorothy; and pointed with her whip.

“It is pleasant to hear such a word,” I said:  “for, as for me, I have none.”

She said nothing to that; and I was a little ashamed to have said it; for nothing is easier than to touch a maid’s heart by playing Othello to her Desdemona.

“I have no business to have said that, cousin,” I went on presently:  “for England is all home to me just now.”

“I hope you will find it so, cousin,” she said.

The country was pretty enough through which we rode; though in no ways wonderful.  It was pasture-land for the most part, with woods here and there; and plenty of hollow ways (all of which were marked upon the map with great accuracy), by which drovers brought their sheep to the highway.  I saw also a good many fields of corn.  The hills were lowish, and ran in lines, with long valleys between; and there was one such on the right as we came to Hare Street, through which flowed a little stream, nearly dry in the summer.

The house itself was the greatest house in the village, and lay at the further end of it upon the right; sheltered from the road by limes, in the midst of which was the gateway, and the house twenty yards within.  My Cousin Tom came up with us as we entered the village, and shewed me with a great deal of pride his new iron gate just set up, with a twisted top.

“It is the finest little gate for ten miles round,” he said, “and cost me near twenty pound.”

We rode past the gate, however, into the yard just beyond; and here there was a great barking of dogs set up; and two or three men ran out.  I helped my Cousin Dorothy from her horse; and then all three of us went through a side-door to the front of the house.