Flo wondered over “wenching” while the train rumbled into a tunnel. When they ran into light once more she was surprised. It was as if the train had done a bit of mountaineering without her realizing it. They were high on a hill side, and below was a widish valley with the gleamy windings of a river. The opposite flank went up in a long straight rise and the skyline was moorland, nearly black with heather that had not yet begun to bud. Then the train ran past a wide gap in the opposite hill, and through it Flo saw hills beyond hills, as if they had all been dropped haphazard. In the gap was a little town of grey houses with grey-stone roofs, all gathered in the bottom so that she smiled at the thought that they must have tobogganed down. Looked on from above, houses dwarfed by the broad hills, the town looked nearly like a toy place; and it was queer to think of it full of strangers all with interests and friends of their own. Then she noticed that one straggling street came up the hill that the train was on, and the train stopped just past this street, and Flo asked the guard the name of the place.
“Yon’s Millgorge; but this ’ere’s cawed New Village. Another hour an’ yo’ll be wheer yo’re goin’.”
“Another hour!” exclaimed Flo, and he went off with a grin.
For another two stations the train kept along the hill overlooking the long valley. Then the guard said it was “Border Bridge”, and that in a minute or two she would be “i’ Derbyshire”. The line curved south and the engine went slower than ever and puffed more than ever. They were climbing along the side of a smaller, much nicer valley where there were more trees, and in place of the earlier river there was only a stream. This ran here and there as all young things do, and tumbled over ledges gaily and whitely.
The valley at first was narrow, and at one place there was scarcely room for the line, the stream, a road and a cottage which were all crushed together there. Then the valley began to expand; it was nearly as deep as the first valley, but wider and somehow more homely. After that the line swung in a great curve to the west, and they toiled out on to a high embankment across the entrance to a side valley that ran up into a green corner of hills on the right. Only Flo was more interested by the left side, for between the larch trees on the embankment she caught sight of a lake with trees around. At some distance away, on an arm of the lake a farmhouse stood. Then unexpectedly the train ran off the embankment into a cutting and all the valley was hidden. When once more Flo could see into the valley the lake was merely a gleam away to the left. In the valley centre far off so that it looked no bigger than a thimble a dark church tower poked up among trees, and there were the grey houses of another village round it. She wondered idly what the name of it could be, and then she noticed that the train was stopping.
“’Ere tha art, wheer thart gooin’,” announced the guard surprisingly jerking open the door.
“Here!” exclaimed Flo, flustered. “I thought you said an hour.”
“Well, tha’ll be wheer thart gooin’ in an hour, and in two hours, winna yo’?” demanded the guard, grinning again. “Wherever tha gets, tha’s wheer tha’s gooin’, or tha wouldna ’a got theer.” He leaned in and picked the bass up easily and swung it out. Flo hastily gathered her handbag and umbrella and almost tumbled after the bass. The train shrugged itself together, and went plodding up the long gradient. Flo was left beside her bass with only one other person in sight, the porter, who was waiting by the small stone ticket-collecting office. She waited, too, hoping that he would come and help, but he only lounged and whistled, as if he had all the rest of the day to waste. So she was forced to lug the bass.
Behind the opposite platform a green bank rose with a row of little black pines along the top, regularly spaced like sentinels. From behind the wooden pailings of the platform up which she was trudging the country seemed to fall away, and there were no houses anywhere. There did not seem to be any reason why a station should be there, and she suddenly wondered if she had been put out at the right place after all. Only there it was on the green-and-black board: MOSS SOUTH. The porter somehow managed to lever himself from against the wall and stood more or less upright, while he held his hand for her ticket. The bass she put down between herself and him, and said:
“Prettyfield . . . I want Prettyfield, Someone was to meet me.”
“Oh, ay,” said the porter, as if that did not in the least matter. “There’s nobody here as Aa knows of.”
“Oh,” said Flo, wondering what to do. “Then perhaps it’s not far.”
“Who were goin’ ta meet you; were it Emmott, or one of the lads?”
“I don’t know; I didn’t know there were any . . . any lads.”