“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said, “only it was tiresome for it to bleed.”
“Nothing like being prepared for emergencies,” said Uncle Jack, taking out his pocket-book, and from one of the pockets a piece of sticking-plaster and a pair of scissors. “I’m always cutting or pinching my fingers. Wonder whether we could have stuck Cob’s head on again if it had been cut off?”
I opined not as I submitted to the rough surgery that went on, and then refusing absolutely to be treated as a sick person, and go back, I tramped on by them, mile after mile, to see something of the fine open country out to the west of the town before we settled down to work.
We were astonished, for as we got away from the smoky pit in which Arrowfield lay, we found, in following the bank of the rivulet that supplied our works, that the country was lovely and romantic too. Hill, dale, and ravine were all about us, rippling stream, hanging wood, grove and garden, with a thousand pretty views in every direction, as we climbed on to the higher ground, till at last cultivation seemed to have been left behind, and we were where the hills towered up with ragged stony tops, and their slopes all purple heather, heath, and moss.
“Look, look!” I cried, as I saw a covey of birds skim by; “partridges!”
“No,” said Uncle Bob, watching where they dropped; “not partridges, my lad—grouse.”
“What, here!” I said; “and so near the town.”
“Near! Why we are seven or eight miles away.”
“But I thought grouse were Scotch birds.”
“They are birds of the moors,” said Uncle Bob; “and here you have them stretching for miles all over the hills. This is about as wild a bit of country as you could see. Why, the country people here call those hills mountains.”