, not to be exorcised by generous impulse--such
was her unlovely inheritance.
As she leaned over a pool of clear brown water in a little burn, where
scented ferns dipped and great rocks of brake and heather shadowed, she
saw her face and figure mirrored in every colour and line. Her
extraordinary prettiness delighted her, and then she laughed at her own
vanity. A lady of the pools, with the dark eyes and red-gold hair of
the north, surely a creature of dawn and the blue sky, and born for no
dreary self-communings. She returned, with her eyes clear and something
like laughter in her heart. To-morrow she should see him, to-morrow!
It was the utter burning silence of midday, when the man who toils loses
the skin of his face, and the man who rests tastes the joys of deep
leisure. The blue, airless sky, the level hilltops, the straight lines
of glen, the treeless horizon of the moors--no sharp ridge or cliff
caught the tired eye, only an even, sleep-lulled harmony. Five very
hungry, thirsty, and wearied men lay in the shadow above the Pool of
Ness, and prayed heaven for luncheon.
Lewis and George, Wratislaw and Arthur Mordaunt were there, and Doctor
Gracey, who loved a day on the hills. The keepers sat farther up the
slope smoking their master's tobacco--sure sign of a well-spent morning.
For the party had been on the moors by eight, and for five burning hours
had tramped the heather. All wore light and airy shooting-clothes save
the doctor, who had merely buckled gaiters over his professional black
trousers. All were burned to a tawny brown, and all lay in different
attitudes of gasping ease. Few things so clearly proclaim a man's past
as his posture when lounging. Arthur and Wratislaw lay, like townsmen,
prone on their faces with limbs rigidly straight. Lewis and George--old
campaigners both--lay a little on the side, arms lying loosely, and
knees a little bent. But one and all gasped, and swore softly at the
weather.
"Turn round, Tommy," said George, glancing up, "or you'll get sunstroke
at the back of the neck. I've had it twice, so I ought to know. You
want to wet your handkerchief and put it below your cap. Why don't you
wear a deer-stalker instead of that hideous jockey thing? Feugh, I am
warm and cross and thirsty. Lewis, I'll give your aunt five minutes,
and then I shall go down and drink that pool dry."
Lewis sat up and watched the narrow ribbon of road which coiled up the
glen to the pool's edge. He on
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