The country through which they were now passing was very grand and wildly picturesque. Hills on hills successively rose on every side around them; they crossed romantic single-arched bridges, over deep ravines, far down at the bottom of which streams went foaming on through a chaos of great dark boulders, which had fallen from the beetling cliffs below, and to which wild flowers clung in patches, with here and there a dwarf pine or silver-stemmed birch.
Slowly, but surely, the roots of these tiny trees were loosening the rocks.
What a lesson this reads one of the virtues of perseverance! For listen to this: the thickness of the rootlets that do the work is no greater than that of a stocking wire, the rate of their growth in length is not a hundredth part of that of the motion of a watch’s hour-hand, the strength they expend in a given second would not be enough to lift or move the tiniest midge or fly that alights upon the page you are reading. But these rootlets have faith, and faith moves mountains. They keep on growing and creeping into every crevice, and in time, lo and behold! tons of solid rock are detached, a thunder shower perhaps being the last straw to break the camel’s back, and down it thunders to the bottom of the ravine, smashing trees and crunching other rocks, till it all reaches the bottom with the force and speed of a little avalanche.
Sometimes they passed over broad open moors, the heather on which was still green, and would be for months to come, but patched all throughout with low flat bushes of golden furze, the scent from which perfumed the air all round, and must have penetrated even to the clouds. The lark, high in air, thrilling out his wild melody, and the rose-breasted wee linnet were the only songsters on these lonely moorlands.
They went very slowly to-day, often stopping to let Don rest, and to cull the wild flowers that grew everywhere in glorious luxuriance.
Little toddling children ran from cottage doors and waved their caps and cheered them, and called them show gipsies, and all sorts of funny names. Sometimes they stopped at these houses to get water for Don and Ossian; then the bairnies came all in a crowd, holding out tiny palms to have their fortunes told.
Effie, in her saucy little straw hat, and her long cloak of crimson, did not look at all unlike a real Romany. She always told good fortunes. The boys were to grow up into bold, brave, good men, and go and fight for their king and country, and come back with hats and plumes on their heads, stars on their manly breasts, spurs on their heels, and great swords jangling at their sides. The girls were to grow up good and kind and truthful, and some were to marry princes, who would come riding for them on white palfreys with scarlet trappings and manes and tails that touched the ground. Some were to marry great warriors, and others would have to be content to wed with honest John Ploughman, or perhaps to marry the miller.
Effie was the house-provider, and often wanted to buy eggs and butter and bread and milk, and she was very much, astonished at the kindness of all these cottagers, for none of them could be prevailed upon to accept any money.
“Bless the dear wee innocent,” a woman would say, “so far away from its mammie. I won’t have this money.”
“Isn’t she wise-looking?” another would add.