The air was pure and sweet, soft yet exhilarating. The stolkjaerres were to carry only luggage to the head of the pass, Mrs Ravenhill declaring herself ready for the five miles walk. The clergyman and his wife were ahead of them.
They went up gradually towards the heights. The mountains fall away on either side, and it is a wide desolate-looking expanse through which the road to Odde curves and zigzags. Patches of snow lie in sun-forgotten gullies, or crown the higher summits. All along the road tall posts are set at intervals to mark the track on those gloomy days of winter when the light of stars shines on one vast sheet of snow, filling the broad valley cup, and smoothing every rough outline. Something of this melancholy solitude remains throughout the year; not a tree breaks the sweep, not a building asserts itself. Walk for hours, and it is unlikely that you meet a human being; the only trace of his activity is the white road which twists upwards. But on a July morning the world under your feet is astir with gladness; the springy turf is starred with myriads of tiny flowers; shrubs of the dwarf cornel peep at you with white brown-eyed blossoms, and the boggy land, through which melting snows are making their way, feed the bright green succulent winter chickweed, or the delicate bells of the false lily of the valley.
And it was across this beautiful upland world, making short cuts from zigzag to zigzag, that Millie, as young as the summer and as happy, went her way. Young Grey had, without deliberate arrangement, become a sort of hanger-on of the party, and he was here. From such small adventures as sticking in a bog, or being forced to wade a stream, merriment flowed joyously. Now and then they sat down, rather from wishing to linger than from need of rest; and it was in one of these halts that, their own carriages having reached a higher level, they beheld two others crawling up the road, and presently a shout reached them from a long spindle-legged figure striding towards the group, and waving a stick to arrest attention. Young Grey sprang to his feet and waved energetically in return.
“It’s Colonel Martyn, and there’s Miss Dalrymple in the carriole!” he exclaimed. “What a shame that she isn’t up here!” He was darting off, when reflection brought him back with—“You don’t mind my trying to persuade her to come with us, Mrs Ravenhill?”
“How should I? By all means persuade her.”
He was off like an arrow from a bow, and Mrs Ravenhill praised his good-nature. Wareham chimed in; Millie sat silent.
Miss Dalrymple did not leave the little carriage, and young Grey did not return. Colonel Martyn was a melancholy substitute. Naturally it fell to Mrs Ravenhill to cheer him, and Wareham and Millie wandered on together. She avoided touching Anne’s name: he repeated it more than once to himself, that he might impress on his mind a stronger sense of his relief in not having her there. All Millie’s little prettinesses he made an inward note of, and extracted admiration, telling himself that here was a sweeter charm. If such a thing had been possible, it might have seemed that he fashioned them into a shield. But why? And against what?
It gave Millie great pleasure to reach the snow-beds, though their edges were little more than crusts, under which trickled out the melting water; and when a sudden shade came between them and the sun, and looking up, they realised for the first time what a bank of cloud was sweeping down from the north, she professed a strong desire to see a storm in these desolate regions. At the top of the pass, where lies a sullen lake, slaty grey now with menacing shadow, the stolkjaerres were waiting, their own and the Martyns’. And, as there opened before them a vast faraway whiteness of snow, unbroken and eternal, a driver, pointing, said the word which they had long expected—“Folgefond!”
“Where is Tom?” Mrs Martyn demanded hastily.
Mrs Ravenhill reported that he had left her to make his way up a hill, from which he foretold a view. “He said he would overtake us.”