The sweet-scented dusk was soothing to the senses, and
there in the narrow glen, with the wide blue strath and the gleam of the
river below, it was hard to find the link of reality and easy to credit
fairyland. Arthur and Miss Wishart had gone on in front and were now
strayed among boulders. She liked this trim and precise young man,
whose courtesy was so grave and elaborate, while he, being a recluse by
nature but a humanitarian by profession, was half nervous and half
entranced in her cheerful society. They talked of nothing, their hearts
being set on the scramble, and when at last they reached the highway and
the farm where the Glenavelin traps had been put up, they found
themselves a clear ten minutes in advance of the others.
As they sat on the dyke in the soft cool air Alice spoke casually of the
place. "Where is Etterick?" she asked; and a light on a hillside
farther up the glen was pointed out to her.
"It's a very fresh and pleasant place to stay at," said Arthur. "We're
much higher than you are at Glenavelin, and the house is bigger and
older. But we simply camp in a corner of it. You can never get Lewie
to live like other people. He is the best of men, but his tastes are
primeval. He makes us plunge off a verandah into a loch first thing in
the morning, you know, and I shall certainly drown some day, for I am
never more than half awake, and I always seem to go straight to the
bottom.
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