“A nice cargo for these hills, I should think.”

“They have brakes on the wheels, of course,” said Sylvie.  “And the horses are strong.  That must be for the new houses.  They will soon make all those things here.  Mr. Kirkbright has large contracts for brick, already.  He has been sending down specimens.  They say the clay is of remarkably fine quality.”

“We shall have to get by that thing, presently,” said Rodney.  “I hope the horse will take it well.”

“Are you trying to frighten me?” asked Sylvie, smiling.  “I’m used to these roads.  I have spent half a summer here, you know.”

But Rodney knew that it was the “being used” that would be the question with the horse.  He doubted if the little country beast had ever seen drain-pipe before.  He had once driven Red Squirrel past a steam boiler that was being transported on a truck.  He remembered the writhe with which the animal had doubled himself, and the side spring he had made.  It was growing dusk, now, also.  They were not more than a mile from Brickfield Basin, and the sun was dropping behind the hills.

“I shall take you out, and lead him by,” he said.  “I’ve no wish to give you another spill.  We won’t go on through life in that way.”

It was quite as well that they had only another mile to go.  Rodney was keeping his promise, but the thread of it was wearing very thin.

They rode slowly up the opposite slope, then waited, in their turn, on the top, to give the team time to reach the next level.

They heard it creak and grind as it wore heavily down, taking up the whole track with careful zigzag tackings; they could see, as it turned, how the pole stood sharp up between the shoulders of the straining wheel horses, as their haunches pressed out either way, and their backs hollowed, and their noses came together, and the driver touched them dexterously right and left upon their flanks to bring them in again.

“Uncle Kit has a good teamster there,” said Rodney.

Just against the foot of the next rise, they overtook him.  The gray nag that Rodney drove pricked his ears and stretched his head up, and began to take short, cringing steps, as they drew near the formidable, moving mass.

Rodney jumped out, and keeping eye and hand upon him, helped down Sylvie also.  Then he threw the long reins over his arm, and took the horse by the bridle.

The animal made a half parenthesis of himself, curving skittishly, and watching jealously, as he went by the frightsome pile.

“You see it was as well not to risk it,” Rodney said, as Sylvie came up with him beyond.  “He would have had us down there among the blackberry vines.  He’s all right now.  Will you get in?”

“Let us walk on to the top,” said Sylvie.  “It is so pleasant to feel one’s feet upon the ground.”

They kept on, accordingly; the slow team rumbling behind them.  At the top, was a wide, beautiful level; oak-trees and maples grew along the roadside, and fields stretched out along a table land to right and left.  Before them, lying in the golden mist of twilight, was a sea of distant hill-tops,—­purple and shadow-black and gray.  The sky bent down its tender, mellow sphere, and touched them softly.