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 only saw some hundreds of yards down it,
but the prospect served to convince him that his erratic aunt was late.
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