Sometimes there was a hamlet as well
as a mill. Tracts of the neighbouring moorland were enclosed and
cultivated, the fields being divided by stone walls, which looked rude
and strange enough to us. The cottages were also built of stone; but
as we drove through a village I could see, through several open doors,
that the rooms were very clean and most comfortably furnished, though
without carpets, the floors, like everything else, being of stone.
It was dark before we reached Blackford. The latter part of our
journey was through a coal and iron district, and the glare of the
furnace fires among the hills was like nothing I had ever seen. At the
coach office we were met by Mr. Jonathan Andrewes. He was a tall,
well-made man, with badly-fitting clothes, rather tumbled linen,
imperfectly brushed hair and hat, and some want of that fresh
cleanliness and finish of general appearance which went to my idea of
a gentleman's outside. I found him a warm-hearted, cold-mannered man,
with a clear, strong head, and a shrewdness of observation which
recalled the Rector to my mind more than once. The tones of his voice
made me start sometimes, they were so like the voice that I could
never hear again in this life.
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