“Wild, grand, solitary, on a day like this,” said Reed to himself; “but what must it be when a western gale is blowing. Come, Master Sturgess, you’re behind your time again.”
He glanced at his watch.
“No; give the devil his due,” he muttered. “I’m half an hour too soon, and, by George, not so solitary as I thought. Behold! two travellers wending their way across the desolate waste, as the novel-writers say. Now what can bring a pair of trousers and a petticoat there?”
The young man shaded his eyes and looked across the gap to where, far away, the two figures he had seen moved so slowly that they seemed to be stationary. Then they separated a little, and the man stooped and then knelt down.
“Can’t be flower-gatherers out here. I know: after mushrooms. But let’s see.”
Clive Reed dragged the strap which supported a tin case slung from his shoulder, forced it aside, and tugged at another strap so as to bring a little binocular into reach; and adjusting this, he followed his natural instinct or some strange law of affinity, and brought the little lenses to bear upon the female in place of the male.
“Not a gentle shepherdess fair, with tously locks and grubby hands and face, though she has a dog by her side,” he said to himself. “Looks like a lady—at a distance. Phyllis and Corydon, eh? No,” he added, after an alteration of the glass; “long white hair and grey beard, and—hullo! old chap’s got a candle-box. Botanist or some other -ist. Hang it, he’s after minerals for a pound, and the lady—in white? Humph, it can’t be the ‘White Virgin’ who gave the name to the mine. Let’s—Hands off, old gentleman, or keep your own side. Hah! there goes the dog: after a rabbit, perhaps.”
Clive Reed was ready to ask himself directly after, why he should stand there taking so much interest in these two figures, so distant that even with the help of the glass he could not distinguish their features. But watch them he did till they disappeared round a shoulder of the hill.
“Tourists—cheap trippers, I suppose,” said the young man, replacing the glass in its sling case. “I wonder where they have come from?” and then with a half laugh, as he took out a cigarette-case and lit up, “I wonder why I take so much interest in them?”
“Answer simple,” he continued, with a half laugh; “because they are the only living creatures in sight. Man is a gregarious beast, and likes to greg. I feel ready to go after them and talk. Hallo! here we are! Master Sturgess and two men with a stout ladder, coils of rope, and—if he hasn’t brought a crowbar and a lanthorn, woe.”