“It’s such a terrible drag up. We should both be dreadfully tired.”
“Oh, I wish we could, mother; I do wish we could.”
The day of their last walk together, when they came to the end of the green lane and were sitting on the gate, she jumped down on the far side and set off walking up the track.
“Come along, Eddie,” she said, “I’m going up to Uffdown.”
“Oh, mother,” he cried. “Isn’t it too far? I should like to carry you!”
And half-doubting, but fearfully eager for adventure, they set off together. As they climbed upward it seemed that the air grew sweeter every moment, and when they had left the wood behind them they came out on to a stony lane with a surface of grit veined by the tracks of storm-water, and on either side banks of tufted grass along which gorse was swaying in the breeze. And here the clouds seemed to be racing close above their heads, all dazzling white, and the blue in which they moved was deep and limpid. Mrs. Ingleby’s gray-green eyes were full of laughter and her face flushed with the climb.
“Oh, mother,” Edwin panted, “what an awful lick you go! Hadn’t we better sit down a bit?”
“And catch cold! You careless boy. We’ll get to the top soon now.”
“But you mustn’t tire yourself.”
She laughed at him.