THE walk had an exhilarating effect on both brother and sister. There is a charm in novelty to us all, and it is a charm which is more especially felt by the young. The present moment bears with it its own importance, and neither future nor past has the power with children that it has with grown-up people. Reginald and Salome soon left behind them the lines of small villas and long narrow streets intersecting each other which stretched out from the district called Elm Fields, connecting it with Roxburgh in one direction, and sloping down towards Harstone in the other.
Beyond all these signs of increasing population was a wide expanse of common or down, skirted, it is true, by houses which year by year are multiplied, but yet comprising an acre or two of broken ground with dips and hollows, and, again, wide spaces of soft turf, freshened by the breezes which come straight from the mouth of the river on which Harstone stands, some ten miles away.
"This is nice," Salome said. "I feel as if I could run and jump here. And look at that line of blue mountains, Reg! Is it not lovely? Oh, we can come here very often! I think I remember driving across these downs when I came with dear father to stay at Uncle Loftus's three or four years ago. We are nearer the downs than the fashionable part of the place, I believe."
"Yes," said Reginald; "I call this jolly. And there's the college over there; we will go home that way, and find out a short cut back to Elm Fields. I say, Sal, there is no one near, or no one who can watch us; let's have a race to the big thorn bush right in front, and on to the stumpy tree to the left."
Salome gave a quick glance round, and then said, "Off!" Away she went, fleet of foot, her plaits of hair falling over her shoulders, refusing to be kept in place by the hair-pins, which were indeed not strong enough to bear up that mass of tawny locks on ordinary occasions, certainly not now when Salome was flying in the teeth of a brisk wind over the open downs.
"Well done," said Reginald, breathless with his exertions, "you were not two yards behind me; but, I say, Sal, your hair!"
"Oh, what shall I do? and no pins! I must go back and look for them."
"Here's one caught in your jacket; but it would be like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay to look for the others on the down. No one will know you; let it all go."
"I will go to a hairdresser and have it cut off. It's no use being bothered like this. Now, let us walk quietly; I wish to consult you about my story. Shall I make the children orphans, living with a cross aunt? or shall they have a father and mother? And would you put in that tale about the monkey which Hans is so fond of? That is a really true tale, you know. It happened to Stevens's little niece."
"Well, I think stories about monkeys pulling watches to pieces and breaking tea-cups are rather stale. So are all stories, if you come to that—the same things told hundreds of times, just the names of the children changed."