The great elm-trees in the hedgerow seemed gilded by the sinking sun, and the fields were of a glorious green, while a flock of rooks, startled by the horse's hoofs, flew off with a loud cawing noise, and I could see the purply black feathers on their backs glisten as they caught the light.
The wheels spun round and seemed to form a kind of tune that had something to do with my going away, while as the horse trotted on and on, uttering a snort at times as if glad to be homeward bound, my heart seemed to sink lower and lower, and I looked in vain for a sympathetic glance or a word of encouragement and comfort from the silent stolid man at my side.
"But some of them were sorry I was going!" I thought with a flash of joy, which went away at once as I recalled the behaviour of Ike and Shock, towards whom I felt something like resentment, till I thought again that I was for the second time going away from home, and this time among people who were all as strange as strange could be.
At any other time it would have been a pleasant evening drive, but certainly one wanted a different driver, for whether it was our crops at Old Brownsmith's, or the idea that he had undertaken a great responsibility in taking charge of me, or whether at any moment he anticipated meeting with an accident, I don't know.

All I do know is that Mr Solomon did not speak to me once, but sat rolling the flower-stalk in his mouth, and staring right before him, aiming straight at some place or another that was going to be my prison, and all the while the sturdy horse trotted fast, the wheels spun round, and there was a disposition on the part of my box to hop and slide about on the great knot in the centre made by the cord.
Fields and hedgerows, and gentlemen's residences with lawns and gardens, first on one side and then on another, but they only suggested hiding-places to me as I sat there wondering what would be the consequences if I were to slip over the back of the seat on to my box when Mr Solomon was not looking, and then over the back of the cart and escape.
The idea was too childish, but it kept coming again and again all through that dismal journey.
All at once, after an hour's drive, I caught sight of a great white house among some trees, and as we passed it Mr Solomon slowly turned round to me and gave his head a jerk, which nearly shook off his hat.
Then he poked it back straight with the handle of his whip, and I wondered what he meant; but realised directly after that he wished to draw my attention to that house as being probably the one to which we were bound, for a few minutes later, after driving for some distance by a high blank wall, he stuck the whip behind him, and the horse stopped of its own accord with its nose close to some great closed gates.
On either side of these was a brick pillar, with what looked like an enormous stone egg in an egg-cup on the top, while on the right-hand pillar there was painted a square white patch, in the centre of which was a black knob looking out of it like an eye.
I quite started, so wrapped was I in thought, when Mr Solomon spoke for the first time in a sharp decided way.
"Pop out and pull that bell," he said, looking at it as if he wondered whether it would ring without being touched.
I hurriedly got down and pulled the knob, feeling ashamed the next moment for my act seemed to have awakened the sleepy place.

There was a tremendous jangling of a great angry-voiced bell which sounded hollow and echoing all over the place; there was the rattling of chains, as half a dozen dogs seemed to have rushed out of their kennels, and they began baying furiously, with the result that the horse threw up his head and uttered a loud neigh.

Then there was a trampling, as of some one in very heavy nailed boots over a paved yard, and after the rattling of bolts, the clang of a great iron bar, and the sharp click of a big lock, a sour-looking man drew back first one gate and then the other, each fold uttering a dissatisfied creak as if disliking to be disturbed.
The horse wanted no driving, but walked right into the yard and across to a large open shed, while five dogs--there were not six--barked and bayed at me, tugging at their chains.

There was a large Newfoundland-- this was before the days of Saint Bernards--a couple of spotted coach-dogs, a great hound of some kind with shortly cropped ears, and looking like a terrier grown out of knowledge, and a curly black retriever, each of which had a great green kennel, and they tugged so furiously at their chains that it seemed as if they would drag their houses across the yard in an attack upon the stranger.
"Get out!" shouted Mr Solomon as the sour-looking man closed and fastened the doors; but the dogs barked the more furiously.