"I wish we could get a few really ancient things," said Cathy one day, as she dusted and tidied the shelves. "Arrow-heads, I mean, and spindle-whorls, and bronze brooches, and all those delightful finds you hear of people digging up out of barrows. I'm sure there ought to be some on these moors if we only knew where to look for them."
"Go and dig, then," suggested Dick. "You don't know what you might come across."
"Why shouldn't I?" said Cathy. "There's a little round green mound just in the corner of the field near the stone bridge that, I always think, looks as if it ought to have something inside it. I shall certainly try 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."