some day, when I have time."

Cathy generally carried out her intentions, so one afternoon about a
week later she came from the tool-house carrying two small garden spades
in her hand.

"Come along, Phil," she said. "We'll go and dig on the moors. It's a
good opportunity while the boys are out fishing. They always make such
fun of us. It will be quite time to tell them about it if we find
anything."

I was more than willing, so we started briskly up the steep stony road
towards the moors. It was a glorious autumn afternoon, with larks
singing overhead, and the heather a glow of soft purple below. Flocks of
plovers scared at our approach flew off with warning cries, and a
sea-gull or two, which had been feeding with them, flapped majestically
away towards the silvery line of the sea in the far distance. We
followed the course of the noisy brook for about a mile, till we reached
the little rough stone bridge which spanned the rapid, rushing water.

"Why do they make the bridge so much wider than the stream?" I asked, as
I looked down at the narrow channel under the arch.

"The water is low now," answered Cathy. "But you should see it when
there has been a storm upon the hills. It comes raging down in a great
foaming torrent, and it's so wide that sometimes you can scarcely get on
to the bridge. It looks grand then. I often think the country is even
more beautiful in winter than in summer, yet how few people who live in
towns ever dream of taking a Christmas holiday to see what the moors are
like in December!"

"They would find it dull, I expect," I suggested, for I could not
imagine Aunt Agatha or any of her friends leaving the diversions of
London to seek nature's solitudes in mid-winter.

"They don't know how to enjoy themselves," said Cathy, who had a fine
scorn for town-dwellers. "I would rather have a ramble over the fells in
the snow, or a scamper on Lady after the hounds, than all the parties
and pantomimes you could offer me."

The mound proved to be a small green hillock in the corner of a very
stony field close to the bridge.

"It's just the kind of place the prehistoric people used to bury their
chiefs under," declared Cathy. "Don't you remember the pictures I
showed you in Mother's book? There ought to be a skeleton in the middle,
and all the drinking-vessels and ornaments and things which they put in
the grave with him. If we pull a few of these stones away I think we
shall be able to dig; the soil