"I daresay. London is good enough for me."
Towards the end of the ten mile stretch from the station signs of civilisation became more frequent. Here and there was a village with cultivated fields around it. Cattle were pastured in enclosed paddocks, and men and women with laughing children trudged along the high road, looking after the motor with great curiosity, for the machine was yet a novelty in that lonely district. Twice the road ran directly through a village, and Vernon had an opportunity of seeing the solid grey stone houses, which were suited to the Calvinistic looks of the country. And the people themselves appeared to be what the Scotch call "dour."
And now the moors began to grow higher and to close in on the white road with a gradual menace. Leaving the comparatively broad lands, the motor glided into a valley, which grew even more narrow as they proceeded. A babbling stream prattled down the centre of this, over a stony bed, and beside it the road twisted along like a white serpent, protected by a parapet of rough stones. Already the crimson light of the sunset had died out of the western sky, but the moon was full, and, soaring high in the dark blue dome of the firmament, poured floods of light into the gully, to use a Colonial expression--for by this time it was little else. And looking upward, Vernon could see star after star peep out to attend on the majestic orb.
"What do you call this place?" he asked abruptly. Towton glanced at him in surprise. "Didn't I tell you? It's Bowderstyke."
"Great Scott, Colonel, is your house situated in this isolated, damp spot. I should think you never saw the sun from one year's end to the other, save when it was directly overhead."
"Oh, the valley broadens out further on. This is merely the entrance."
"What the deuce do the inhabitants live on? It's like living in a drain."
"Oh, confound you, Vernon," said the Colonel half annoyed. "It's one of the most beautiful places in the world. If you were a Yorkshire tyke you would admit that. There is only the village of Bowderstyke a mile away, and the inhabitants live by pasturing their cattle on the moors on the heights above. Also there is a weaving and spinning industry, the mills being driven by water power, of which there is no lack."
"This stream doesn't seem to have much water," said Vernon disdainfully.
"You should see it in winter when the snows melt on the moors," advised the Colonel. "Besides, the water from the mills comes from Hest's new reservoir, and there is a never-failing supply. This stream used to be much broader, and its bed contained much more water, but when the Bolly Dam was constructed, of course the supply dwindled. Pipes run under this road to supply the several villages you saw just before we entered the valley."