"That woman," said Ned, from his blanketed bed in the hay, "ought to have been a Field Marshal or a Prime Minister."
There was absolute conviction in his voice.
They found the summer sun had been at work for some hours on the storm-drenched world ere they woke to the lowing roar of the heifer from the neighbouring cow-house. Motherhood had evidently come to her at dawn, bringing its wider outlook, its larger self; and sure enough, when they scrambled down from the loft, they found at the foot of the ladder, penned in by an old door, a big, black bull-calf lustily answering anxiety by assertion.
The cottage over against them, however,--it formed part of a long range of farm-steadings, which stretched right away to the stream they had crossed the night before--showed no sign of life. The door was closed, the window-blinds down; the inmates were most likely sleeping sound after their broken rest.
So, their clothes being still damp, the two young men went up stream to a long, deep pool, and spreading them out to dry in the hot sunshine, had a morning bath, thereinafter drying themselves in the same fashion on a grassy bank, whence, looking up the valley, they could see the mountains closing in on the narrow strip of level pasture. Behind them, the downward view was absolutely shut out by the farm-buildings, above which showed a yew tree, and by a dense clump of rhododendrons, which trended away until it met the other wooded hillside of the little glen.
"I believe we are really on an island," remarked Ted, critically appraising the values of some willows and elders which, higher up beyond the pasture fields, seemed to betoken another channel of water.
"A desert island," said Ned, busy over the intricacies of cold water and a razor from his, shoulder-wallet. "We are reduced to the makeshifts of primitive manhood. What more do we want?--and all without that hundred pounds! I never slept better than I did in that hay."
"Small blame to you with feather pillows and best Whitney blankets! And as for money--we shall have to tip these people. I suppose half-a-crown will do----"
"Ahem," replied Ned somewhat doubtfully; "but it was beastly late, you know."
"Very; but that wasn't our doing: they were up with the 'hi'fer.' However, let's put it at three shillings."