And one sweet brooklet’s silver line.’
The ‘sweet brooklet’ was just then rushing onwards, muddy and swollen, in anything but a silver line. Eleanor turned back, and finding that William’s knowledge of the country here became rather misty, made inquiries in the village as to the nearest way to ‘Catcastle Crag.’
Visible astonishment arose upon the countenance of the rustic whom she addressed—an elderly labourer, who made answer, after the wary manner of the English of the north—
‘It’s a vary rough rooäd to Catcastle.’
‘Is it? Well, would you tell me the nearest way?’
‘Your horse won’t go within half a mile of the crag.’
‘Well, I would like to know how you get within half a mile of the crag, if you will please to tell me the nearest way.’
‘Nearest rooäd is o’er yonder,’ was the reply, accompanied by a sweep of a long and stalwart arm, which sweep might embrace some fifteen or twenty miles of country.
Eleanor laughed, and after some difficulty induced her informant so far to commit himself as to mention one or two roads by name, which thing he did very reluctantly; but she gathered from what he said that she had ‘three miles and a piece’ to ride, not continuing on the same road, but always keeping to the left whenever cross roads came, and that by doing this she would arrive as near Catcastle Crag as her horse would take her; while by skirting round it, still to the left, she would come to a road leading to Deepdale, and thence home.
‘But,’ observed her interlocutor, with a look of tolerant pity, ‘I think it’s something of a fool’s errand, of a day like this. Wind’s changing, and we’ll have frost before midnight.’