“I wouldn’t shoot like that, if I were you, Rob,” said his wife, placidly. “Don’t it say in the Book that the hills are a refuge for the wild goat? Do you suppose it was intended for that refuge to be invaded?”
“But, mother,” protested Mr. Murray, boyishly, “did you get a good sight at his horns? I’d have made old Sandy’s eyes shine if I’d taken those back to him.”
Just a little before sunset, they reached the camping place. High up in the hills it was, with a little lake, shut in by masses of fir and spruce. They came to an open space overlooking it from the easterly side, and were glad enough to slip from the saddles, and unpack for the night. All about them, blending into the sky itself it seemed, were distant ranges. A flock of frightened water birds flew up from the tall reeds near the water edge, and off to the south Peggie pointed out some wild ducks flying to the pond.
“I’ll build the fire for you, mother,” Mr. Murray said, “and leave you to get supper, while the girls help me put up the tents and gather spruce boughs for the beds.”
“Ruth, Isabel,” Polly called, as she stood up on a rock overlooking the camping place. “Just come up here and see how glorious it all is. There are some rocks over there that look like a great castle piled up against the sunset.
“The splendour falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story,
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.”
Ruth stopped short, breathless from her climb up to the rock.