“No. I like to hear the brook tinkling, don’t you?” he replied.
“Ah, yes—it’s full of music.”
“Shall we go on?” he said, impatient but submissive.
“I’ll catch up in a minute,” said I.
I went in and found Emily putting some bread into the oven.
“Come out for a walk,” said I.
“Now? Let me tell mother—I was longing——”
She ran and put on her long grey coat and her red tam-o-shanter. As we went down the yard, George called to me.
“I’ll come back,” I shouted.
He came to the crew-yard gate to see us off. When we came out onto the path, we saw Lettie standing on the top bar of the stile, balancing with her hand on Leslie’s head. She saw us, she saw George, and she waved to us. Leslie was looking up at her anxiously. She waved again, then we could hear her laughing, and telling him excitedly to stand still, and steady her while she turned. She turned round, and leaped with a great flutter, like a big bird launching, down from the top of the stile to the ground and into his arms. Then we climbed the steep hill-side—Sunny Bank, that had once shone yellow with wheat, and now waved black tattered ranks of thistles where the rabbits ran. We passed the little cottages in the hollow scooped out of the hill, and gained the highlands that look out over Leicestershire to Charnwood on the left, and away into the mountain knob of Derbyshire straight in front and towards the right.