"Billy'll be fearfully sick when he hears where we've been," said Gipsy.
"Poor old Billy-ho! Yes, he'd have liked to follow us with his camera; but he's not quite up to tackling Hawes Fell just at present," agreed Meg.
The inn was a delightfully quaint, old-fashioned, primitive little place, such as is not often found in these days of modern improvements. Gipsy, who had had no opportunity before of seeing English country life, was enchanted with its sanded floor, its oak dresser with rows of willow-pattern plates, its pewter mugs and dishes, and the great brass preserving-pan that was set in the ingle-nook. She admired the oak beams of the ceiling, the rows of plant pots in the long mullioned window, the settle drawn up by the big fireplace, and the glass cases of stuffed pike and game birds that adorned the walls.
The lunch was a great success—a smoking dish of fried ham and eggs, home-made bread and farmhouse butter, thin oatcakes and moorland honey, and coffee, with thick yellow cream to pour into it.
"Beats school, doesn't it?" said Donald, with a chuckle of enjoyment, as he helped himself to a third serving of honey. "I say, though, we shan't have to stop too long feasting here if we mean to get to the top of Hawes Fell. It's a jolly good step, I can tell you."
"We're ready!" returned Meg smartly. "We were only waiting for you to finish gormandizing."
"Thanks for the compliment! One doesn't get the chance of heather honey every day, and I've a remarkably sweet tooth. Anything in the way of jam or preserves left near me invariably vanishes."
The way up the fell lay first over the old stone bridge that spanned the river, then across fields, and by a narrow footpath leading up a steep and thickly-wooded hillside. Though the trees were still in their winter garb they were none the less lovely for that; the lack of foliage revealed the delicate tracery of their boughs and the beauty of their straight stems, which, in one or two terraced glades, were like the columns and shafts of some great cathedral. The sun shining down the glen gave a soft purplish tint to the bare twigs, and brought out in bolder contrast the deep dark green of the innumerable masses of ivy that had utterly taken possession of and choked some of the trees supporting them.
"Isn't it glorious? I always say our fells need a great deal of beating," said Meg, who was an enthusiast over her native county. "I don't believe there's a wood equal to this anywhere!" and she began to sing the old north-country ditty:
"A north-countree maid
Up to London had strayed,
Although with her nature it did not agree.
She wept and she sighed,
And she bitterly cried:
'I wish once again in the north I could be!
Oh! the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They all grow so green in the north countree!'"