“Is it far to your home from here?” she asked.
“Just a bit climb and a run down into the glen. Let’s be off, for bonnie as this burn is it’s time we were thinking of dinner.”
What a tramp that was, under the spreading trees near the brook, up to a heathy hill where the air was sweet as honey and the butterflies rocked over the flowers that crowded every step of the way! Di pointed out the Cheviot hills, rising high, huge rounded domes, desolate and frowning but wonderfully picturesque.
From the hilltop the girls looked down on Osbaldistone Hall, a fine old building that seemed to be of huge size, peeping out here and there from behind the splendid grove of oaks that crowded close upon it. A narrow footpath led down the slope into the glen, and Di led the way along this at a dancing pace.
Diana took her two friends toward the Hall by way of an ancient garden guarded by high hedges of holly, between which ran narrow grassy paths, giving every now and then on open spaces where once there had been carefully tended flowerbeds. Now these were overrun with weeds, but the hardy perennials that yet struggled there managed to bring to bloom many a lovely flower. Larkspur and Canterbury-bells, marigold and late roses made the garden sweet and bright, and both the young Americans kept exclaiming with joy over the pretty sight.
“Do you love flowers?” Di wanted to know. “Are they not delightful, and the more so, I think, for this neglect? We will return here later if there be time, but now we must make our way to the dining-hall or uncle will begin to bluster.”
Passing through an arched stone passage, they came out into a square courtyard surrounded on all sides by the massive old Hall. Doorways and windows opened to this court, and servants were scurrying across it. Diana crossed it and led on through a maze of vaulted hallways until, passing through a great double door, they came out into a long room, also vaulted, paved with stone, with a mighty fireplace at one end, in which, for all it was warm summer outside, a fire crackled and flamed. Heavy oak tables were set for the meal, and just as the girls entered at one side, a crowd of men and boys tumbled in at the other, laughing and shouting and calling commands to a dozen dogs who poured in with them. When the boys saw Rose and Ruth, however, they immediately fell silent, staring half-sullenly, half-shyly in their direction, and shuffling forward awkwardly to their seats.
“These are my cousins, and you can see their manners are hardly polished,” said Di, somewhat scornfully. “But here comes my uncle; we will go and greet him if the dogs will let us be heard.”
Sir Hildebrand came in at that moment, a tall, broad-shouldered, handsome man in a green cloth suit that would have been magnificent if it had not been shabby. He was shouting at two of his hounds, and flourishing a riding whip. It seemed to Rose and Ruth that never in this world had they heard so astounding a racket as echoed and roared under the vaulted stone roof. Di moved along unconcerned through it all, and they after her. As they reached the baronet he looked down at them with a quick, attractive smile:
“Well, Di, my girl, any one been bothering you—none shall cross my Di,” he cried in a big hearty voice.