“We have native horses,” he said, with a good-humoured smile that leaped out of his eyes before it parted his lips; “we have horses, and we have ponies, and I am afraid that a pair of the one would be as serviceable in the long run as a pair of the other in drawing it on these roads.  Are you getting out carriage-horses from England, Captain Rexford?”

The gentleman addressed continued to set the cushions in their places, but in a minute he went back into the station, where by a stove he found his wife and Sophia warming themselves, the smallest children, and a pot of carriage oil.

“You know, my dears, I never felt quite clear in my own mind that it was wise of us to bring the carriage.”  He held his hands to the warmth as he spoke.  “Mr. Trenholme, I find, seems to think it heavy for these roads.”

His wife heard him quite cheerfully.  “In weather like this nothing could be more desirable,” said she, “than to have one’s own comfortably cushioned carriage; and besides, I have always told you we owe it to our children to show the people here that, whatever misfortunes we have had, we have been people of consequence.”  She added after a moment in conclusion:  “Harold has brought the best grease for the wheels.”

She had her way therefore, and in course of time the ladies, and as many of the children as could be crowded into the carriage, thus commenced the last stage of their journey.  The others were driven on by Trenholme.  As for the little boys, “a good run behind,” their mother said, was just what they needed to warm them up.

They began running behind, but soon ran in front, which rather confused Mrs. Rexford’s ideas of order, but still the carriage lumbered on.

CHAPTER XII.

Captain Rexford had no fortune with his second wife; and their children numbered seven daughters and three sons.  It was natural that the expenses of so large a family should have proved too much for a slender income in an English town where a certain style of living had been deemed a necessity.  When, further, a mercantile disaster had swept away the larger part of this income, the anxious parents had felt that there was nothing left for their children but a choice between degrading dependence on the bounty of others and emigration.  From the new start in life which the latter course would give they had large hopes.  Accordingly, they gathered together all that they had, and, with a loan from a richer relative, purchased a house and farm in a locality where they were told their children would not wholly lack educational opportunities or society.  This move of theirs was heroic, but whether wise or unwise remained to be proved by the result of indefinite years.  The extent of their wealth was now this new property, an income which, in proportion to their needs, was a mere pittance, and the debt to the richer relative.

The men who came to call on their new neighbour, and congratulate him on his choice of a farm, did not know how small was the income nor how big the debt, yet even they shook their heads dubiously as they thought of their own difficulties, and remarked to each other that such a large family was certainly a great responsibility.