And there was a bit about a shepherd too:—
'Leave yo' sheep, an'
Leave yo' lamb, an'
Leave yo' ewe, an'
Leave yo' ram, an'
Rise up, shepherd, and foller!'
I asked her to sing it over again. I had forgotten all about the time and the drive home and the beastly weather. Luckily I happened to look at my watch. It was nearly six o'clock!
'We've got to look sharp,' I said, 'if we want any dinner at the hotel.'
Look sharp, indeed! The woman at the inn must have been mad or drunk when she told us that the low road home was only two miles longer than the way we came. We may have missed the right turning, for Miss Virginia was talking and laughing at such a rate when we began the drive, that I confess I hadn't much attention to spare. We gradually emerged from the valley where the village lay, and were soon on the open moor and fairly lost on it before you could say Jack Robinson.
I never saw such a dismal, howling, God-forsaken country, without a house or a hut or so much as a heap of stones to mark the way,—a wilderness of stubby heath and endless, endless roads, crossing and recrossing in a way that is simply maddening and perfectly senseless, for they lead to nowhere. We were three mortal hours crawling along on those confounded roads. It rained, of course, and a wind got up, and at the end of that time we were apparently no nearer Grey Tor than when we left Widdington.